Principal Software Engineer

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. We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer. In this role, you will shape the long-term technical vision of UKG's engineering organization, define novel architectural approaches, and establish UKG as an industry leader in applying AI responsibly and effectively in the HCM domain. Principal Engineers operate at the intersection of deep technical expertise, industry-level influence, and strategic business impact. You will collaborate with senior leadership, product, and engineering teams across the organization to set the direction for how AI capabilities are adopted, governed, and leveraged to deliver transformative value to UKG's customers. RESPONSIBILITIES * Enterprise Technical Vision: Define and champion the long-term technical strategy for UKG's engineering platform, with a particular focus on AI/ML integration, cloud-native architecture, and developer productivity at scale. * Industry-Level Thought Leadership: Represent UKG in the broader engineering community through publications, conference talks, open-source contributions, and industry standards participation. Elevate UKG's technical brand externally. * Cross-Organizational Architecture: Lead architectural decisions and standards that span multiple engineering domains, products, and value streams. Ensure coherence, scalability, and security of UKG's overall technical ecosystem. * AI Strategy & Governance: Own the enterprise-wide AI/ML technical strategy: define how AI capabilities are adopted, evaluated, and governed across the engineering organization. Make high-stakes architectural decisions with incomplete information at industry-defining scale. * Executive Partnership: Partner with CTO, VPs of Engineering, and Product leadership to translate business goals into technical strategy. Influence resource allocation, technology investments, and build/buy/partner decisions for AI capabilities. * Innovation: Identify transformative technology opportunities — especially in AI/GenAI — that can create step-change competitive advantage for UKG products. Prototype, validate, and advocate for bold technical bets. * Mentorship & Talent Development: Elevate the entire engineering organization through mentoring P4/P5 engineers, establishing architectural principles, and creating a culture of technical excellence and responsible AI development. * Standards & Governance: Define and enforce engineering-wide standards for code quality, AI evaluation, security, compliance, and developer experience. Govern responsible AI practices at the organization level, including safety, bias, and regulatory compliance. * Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work with legal, security, product, data science, and operations teams to ensure engineering decisions account for regulatory, ethical, and operational requirements at global scale. MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS * Bachelor's/Master's or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent industry experience. * 12+ years of software development experience, including significant time in senior technical leadership and architecture roles. * Deep, broad expertise in software architecture across distributed systems, cloud-native platforms, SaaS multi-tenancy, and large-scale data systems. * Proven track record of defining and executing multi-year technical strategies at the organization or industry level. * Recognized...