Drury says new roles will be in the areas of artificial intelligence, 'big data' and machine-learning.

Xero plans to hire another 50 highly paid product developers in Wellington by Christmas and "potentially quite a lot more" after that.

Chief executive Rod Drury said a lot of the new jobs, which would be in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning, would pay more than $100,000 and some would be "very senior".

Xero currently employs 512 staff in the city after signalling last year that some teams were near their full complement and it would ease back a bit on recruitment.

About 70 per cent of the candidates Xero was currently interviewing were returning Kiwis or international expats, Drury said.

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"I think for the first time we are offering 'world class jobs' in New Zealand with no compromise – all the benefits of living here, but being able to do some of the most interesting work in 'big data', AI and machine-learning.

"These are the new skills that people need for their careers. We want to make New Zealand a real hub for this work. Wellington has a lot to offer and I really think it's 'our time'."

Britain's Brexit referendum and the political situation in the United States were making it easier to attract talent to New Zealand, he said.

One purpose of the work was to make accounting easier by providing the intelligence in its cloud-based software to learn what codes could be automatically applied to items in invoices and expenses.