Dir. Software Engineering

Why UKG:

At UKG, the work you do matters. The code you ship, the decisions you make, and the care you show a customer all add up to real impact. Today, tens of millions of workers start and end their days with our workforce operating platform. Helping people get paid, grow in their careers, and shape the future of their industries. That’s what we do.

We never stop learning. We never stop challenging the norm. We push for better, and we celebrate the wins along the way. Here, you’ll get flexibility that’s real, benefits you can count on, and a team that succeeds together. Because at UKG, your work matters—and so do you.

Director of Engineering, UKG Ready

UKG is looking for a passionate and experienced Director of Engineering to lead engineering teams within UKG Ready.

The ideal candidate is a strong people leader with deep technical experience, a proven record of leading Agile engineering teams, and a passion for building scalable, secure, high-quality software. This leader will help set technical direction, improve engineering execution, remove barriers, and drive continuous improvement across teams.

In this role the candidate may lead teams responsible for one or more foundational capabilities such as identity and access, job framework, AI enablement, core platform services, including UI foundations, reporting, workflow experiences, shared front-end capabilities, and tools that enable product teams to deliver consistent and intuitive customer experiences.

This leader will partner closely with Product Management, Architecture, UX, Security, and engineering leaders across UKG Ready to deliver platform and product capabilities that support customer outcomes and long-term product strategy.

Primary Responsibilities
Lead multiple Agile engineering teams within the UKG Ready organization.
Provide technical and organizational leadership for either platform-oriented or experience-oriented teams.
Build, coach, and develop engineering managers, technical leads, and engineers.
Drive delivery of scalable, reliable, secure, and maintainable software capabilities.
Champion continuous improvement across engineering practices, Agile execution, quality, reliability, and operational maturity.
Remove impediments and help teams execute effectively against product and technical roadmaps.
Promote strong engineering practices including automated testing, CI/CD, observability, secure development, and production readiness.
Establish and monitor meaningful engineering metrics related to delivery, quality, reliability, and team effectiveness.
Foster a culture of ownership, collaboration, inclusion, innovation, and technical excellence.

Requirements
15+ years of experience building and delivering software with at least 5+ years as a senior technology leader
Deep expertise in Java, Web applications, Cloud technologies and AI native applications
Proven experience leading software engineering teams, including multiple Agile teams or engineering managers.
Strong technical background in enterprise SaaS, distributed systems, platform engineering, user experience frameworks, or large-scale web applications.
Experience setting technical direction and partnering with senior engineers and architects on complex engineering decisions.
Strong understanding of Agile development practices, including Scrum, Kanban, retrospectives, planning, and continuous improvement.
Demonstrated ability to deliver high-quality software while balancing product priorities, technical debt, operational needs, and long-term strategy.
Experience improving engineering effectiveness through process, tooling, automation, metrics, and team development.
Strong people leadership skills, including hiring, coaching, career development, performance management, and team building.
Excellent communication and collaboration skills with the ability to influence across functions and levels.

Preferred Qualifications
Experience with platform capabilities such as identity and access, job processing frameworks, AI enablement, DevOps, developer experience, APIs, reliability, or shared services.
Experience with experience-focused capabilities such as UI frameworks, self-service frameworks, reporting, workflow experiences, design systems, or shared front-end platforms.
Experience with cloud-native architectures, microservices, observability, CI/CD, automated testing, and modern software delivery practices.
Experience in HCM, workforce management, payroll, HR technology, or enterprise business applications.
Experience leading geographically distributed or hybrid teams.
Leadership Expectations

The successful candidate will be a technically credible and people-focused leader who can operate at both strategic and execution levels. They should be comfortable guiding technical direction, developing leaders, partnering across value streams, and helping teams make pragmatic tradeoffs.

This role is ideal for an engineering leader who enjoys building strong teams, improving engineering systems, and delivering software foundations and experiences that help UKG Ready scale.

Company Overview:

UKG is the Workforce Operating Platform that puts workforce understanding to work. With the world's largest collection of workforce insights, and people-first AI, our ability to reveal unseen ways to build trust, amplify productivity, and empower talent, is unmatched. It's this expertise that equips our customers with the intelligence to solve any challenge in any industry — because great organizations know their workforce is their competitive edge. Learn more at ukg.com.

UKG is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion in the workplace, including the recruitment process.

Disability Accommodation in the Application and Interview Process

For individuals with disabilities that need additional assistance at any point in the application and interview process, please email [email protected]