Staff Software Engineer- Payroll Platform

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.

About the Role
We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join our Payroll Engineering organization. This is a senior technical leadership role responsible for driving the architecture, scalability, reliability, and long-term technical strategy of our payroll platform. As a Staff Engineer, you will influence engineering direction across multiple teams, lead the design of mission-critical systems, and serve as a technical mentor and trusted advisor to engineers and leaders throughout the organization.

You will play a key role in modernizing our platform, advancing cloud-native architectures, and identifying opportunities to leverage AI-driven capabilities to improve both engineering productivity and customer outcomes. This position requires deep technical expertise, strong architectural vision, and the ability to align engineering investments with business objectives.

Responsibilities:
Technical Strategy & Architecture
Define and drive the long-term technical vision, architecture, and modernization strategy for Payroll platforms and services.
Lead the design and evolution of highly scalable, resilient, secure, and maintainable distributed systems.
Establish architectural standards, engineering best practices, and technical governance across multiple teams.
Evaluate emerging technologies, including AI and Generative AI solutions, and drive adoption where they create measurable business value.

Organizational Technical Leadership
Serve as a technical leader across engineering teams, influencing architecture and engineering decisions beyond immediate team boundaries.
Partner with Engineering Managers, Product Leaders, Architects, and Principal Engineers to align technical strategy with organizational priorities.
Lead technical discovery, proof-of-concepts, and platform initiatives that span multiple products and services.
Drive engineering excellence through technical reviews, architecture assessments, and continuous improvement initiatives.

Software Engineering Excellence
Contribute hands-on development for complex and business-critical initiatives.
Champion software quality, observability, performance, security, and operational excellence throughout the software development lifecycle.
Establish standards for testing, automation, deployment, and production readiness.
Lead resolution of complex production incidents and conduct root cause analysis to improve platform resilience.

AI and Innovation
Identify and implement opportunities to leverage AI technologies, including Large Language Models (LLMs), machine learning, and intelligent automation.
Partner with product and engineering teams to incorporate AI-powered capabilities into payroll products and internal engineering workflows.
Evaluate AI governance, security, scalability, and operational considerations for enterprise adoption.

Mentorship & Talent Development
Mentor senior and emerging engineers across the organization.
Foster a culture of technical excellence, innovation, inclusion, and continuous learning.
Influence hiring, onboarding, technical career development, and succession planning.

DevOps & Operational Ownership
Champion end-to-end ownership from requirements through production operations.
Drive improvements in reliability, observability, deployment automation, and service health.
Define and monitor key operational metrics and service-level objectives (SLOs).

Collaboration & Communication
Communicate complex technical concepts effectively to engineering, product, and executive stakeholders.
Build consensus across teams and drive alignment on technical direction and priorities.
Represent engineering in strategic planning discussions and cross-functional initiatives.

Minimum Qualifications
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
9+ years of professional software engineering experience, including significant experience designing and operating large-scale distributed systems.
Expert-level proficiency in Java and modern backend architecture patterns.
Strong experience with React, TypeScript, and modern web application architectures.
Deep understanding of microservices, event-driven systems, APIs, and enterprise integration patterns.
Extensive experience with SQL and NoSQL databases and large-scale data architectures.
Strong expertise in cloud-native technologies and platforms such as Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud Platform.
Proven experience leading architectural initiatives across multiple teams or product areas.
Experience implementing observability, reliability engineering, and operational excellence practices.
Familiarity with AI technologies, Generative AI, LLM platforms, AI-assisted development tools, and enterprise AI adoption strategies.
Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction and mentor engineers at all levels.
Exceptional communication, collaboration, and stakeholder management skills.

We thrive in a hybrid model; 3 days per week in the Lowell office is required. Local candidates highly preferred.

Preferred Qualifications
Experience designing and operating enterprise payroll, HCM, financial, or highly regulated systems.
Experience with AI platform integration, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), vector databases, agentic frameworks, or machine learning systems.
Experience leading cloud modernization or large-scale platform transformation initiatives.
Knowledge of security, compliance, privacy, and governance requirements for enterprise SaaS platforms.
Experience contributing to open-source projects, technical communities, or industry conferences.
Track record of driving innovation and delivering measurable business impact through technology investments.
Passion for fostering diverse, inclusive, and high-performing engineering teams.

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 an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, disability, religion, sex, age, national origin, veteran status, genetic information, and other legally protected categories.

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UKG participates in E-Verify. View the E-Verify posters here.

It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.

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

The pay range for this position is $129,500.00 to $186,100.00 The actual base pay offered may vary depending on skills, experience, job-related knowledge and work location. In addition to base pay, employees may be eligible to participate in a performance-based bonus plan and to receive restricted stock unit awards as part of total compensation. Learn more about UKG’s benefits and rewards at