About Auckland · -36.85°, 174.76°

Hi, I'm John.

I'm an engineering leader and founder driven by the challenge of turning ideas into products — and building the teams that make it happen.

14years building
7companies
2startups co-founded
Portrait of John Gregoriadis, Principal Engineer at Prosaic, based in Auckland, New Zealand
John Gregoriadis -36.85°, 174.76°

About me

bio · tl;dr

Currently a Principal Engineer at Prosaic, where we're building AI-powered accounting software. Before that, I was Head of Engineering at Cotiss, where I recruited and scaled the engineering team, shipped the MVP to market, and helped the company secure a $2.2M pre-seed round backed by Blackbird Ventures and Icehouse Ventures.

I co-founded Spotrisk, an eCommerce fraud detection platform integrated with Shopify and BigCommerce, growing it from concept through product development, team building, and a successful funding round over five years. At Xero, I progressed from Development Team Lead to Head of Engineering across four years, building teams that shipped continuously to customers.

Whether I'm leading teams, writing code, or shaping strategy, I care most about bringing people, process, and technology together to build things that matter. Always open to connecting — feel free to reach out.

Now

what I'm doing
current
Principal Engineer at Prosaic
since Jul 2025

Hands-on engineer in a team of four, building an AI-powered double-entry accounting platform for practices across NZ, AU, and beyond. Architecting auth, core accounting APIs, MCP integration, and agentic workflows end-to-end — AI deeply integrated into the SDLC and the platform itself.

Node.jsTypeScriptNext.jsPostgreSQLClickHouseTerraformMCPClaude
rolePrincipal · hands-on
team4 (small & deliberate)
domainAI-native accounting
basedAuckland, NZ
writingjonno.nz
side-questsC. elegans × LLMs, microVMs, crime forecasting

Path so far

2010 → now
Jul 2025 — presentcurrent

Prosaic

Principal Engineer
details

Hands-on engineer in a team of four, building Prosaic's AI-powered double-entry accounting platform for practices across New Zealand, Australia, and beyond. Architecting and implementing auth, core accounting APIs, MCP integration, and agentic workflows end-to-end.

  • AI-driven workflows deeply integrated into the SDLC and core platform architecture
  • Leveraging deep accounting domain expertise from Xero alongside world-class AI dev tools
  • Working closely with former Xero & Vend colleagues

Recruited a talented, diverse team of engineers, scaled up their processes and capabilities, and helped deliver the MVP to market. Close collaboration with product, design & operations was key.

  • Implemented a technical strategy aligned with business goals
  • Helped secure a $2.2M pre-seed round from Blackbird & Icehouse Ventures
  • Identified and prioritised key technical initiatives; integrated emerging industry trends
Head Of Engineering Jul 2021 — Nov 2022 · 1y 5mo

Led an engineering organisation of 60 across Xero's API & Developer ecosystem, and App Store billing. Drove improvements to engineering practice organisation-wide, including defining the Principal Engineer role. Brought in internal tooling to consolidate a fragmented landscape. Oversaw a major authorisation rebuild.

Development Manager Jul 2019 — Sep 2021 · 2y 3mo

Managed people, processes and technology. Developed an engineering culture enabling teams to ship multiple times per day directly to customers. Drove team performance across Product, Design and Engineering; championed an ownership culture.

Development Team Lead Jul 2018 — Jul 2019 · 1y 1mo

Recruited, trained and developed teams focused on 3rd party integrators and the Xero app store. Drove coaching on agile software development practices; advocated for technical excellence and architectural contribution.

Spotrisk helps eCommerce SMBs identify, eliminate, and learn about fulfillment risk — integrating with the world's top eCommerce platforms (Shopify, BigCommerce).

  • Built product from market research through to 1st iteration in-market
  • Built a team of 5 across Product, Engineering & Design
  • Co-led business development, pitch decks, investor presentations, governance
  • Led the company through a successful pre-seed round

Meide Studios are engineers and artists providing direction, technology and creative services to select clientele across fashion and culture industries.

  • Set up the company's technical strategy
  • Provided technical oversight to engineering and management teams
  • Translated strategic vision and product initiatives into technical requirements
Lead Engineer Jan 2015 — Aug 2018 · 3y 8mo

Managed 3 teams focused on internal systems, billing, integrations and 3rd party payments. Drove the technical solution for a new billing platform — flexible and component-based. Led implementation standards while coaching and developing staff.

Engineer Jan 2014 — Dec 2014 · 1y

Worked closely with stakeholders to define feature work including coding, releasing and mentoring; performed the role of Scrum Master.

Support Engineer Aug 2012 — Nov 2014 · 2y 4mo

Conduit between customer support and the engineering team; identified areas for improvements and enhancements while working closely with customers.

Social-media-focused chatbot integration allowing users to connect POS/eCommerce platforms to social media, interacting with and purchasing from a product catalog directly.

  • Co-founded May 2014; led Lead Engineer role
  • Acquired by Vend in November 2015

Early-stage venture. Co-founded and led the engineering effort.