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.
About the Role
We are seeking a seasoned Software Engineering Manager to lead a team of engineers building & delivering software as part of Payroll product suite. As a first-line manager, you will drive technical excellence, foster a culture of ownership, and ensure the successful delivery of high-impact AI-powered projects. You will be responsible for guiding technical decisions, managing team performance, and aligning engineering efforts with business goals.
Duties and Responsibilities
Technical Leadership:
- Provide technical leadership and direction for major projects, ensuring alignment with business goals and industry best practices.
- Be hands-on with code, maintaining high technical standards and actively participating in architecture discussion
- Ensure that high standards of performance, scalability, and reliability are maintained when architecting, designing, and developing complex software systems and applications.
- Ensure accountability for the team's technical decisions and enforce engineering best practices (e.g., documentation, automation, code management, security principles, responsible AI development).
- Ensure the health and quality of services and incidents, proactively identifying and addressing issues. Utilize service health indicators and telemetry for action. Implement best practices for operational excellence.
- Guide the team in designing reliable, safe, and observable AI systems, including multi-agent orchestration, tool and skill design, and prompt engineering standards.
- Play a pivotal role in the R.I.D.E. (Recommend, Inform, Decide, Execute) framework.
- Understand CI/CD pipelines from build, test, to deploy phases.
Team Management:
- Lead and manage a team of software engineers, fostering a collaborative and high-performance environment. Conduct regular performance reviews, provide feedback, and support professional development.
- Lead engineers operating at the intersection of software and AI, setting quality standards for systems that are probabilistic and non-deterministic by nature.
- Foster a culture of service ownership and enhance team engagement.
- Drive succession planning and engineering efficiency, focusing on quality and developer experience through data-driven approaches.
- Promote a growth mindset, understanding and driving organizational change.
- Actively seek opportunities for team growth and cross-functional collaboration.
- Work and guide the team on how to operate in a DevOps model, taking ownership from working with product management on requirements to design, develop, test, deploy, and maintain the software in production.
Coaching and Development:
- Grow and develop the team technically and with a quality mindset, providing strong and actionable feedback.
- Provide technical mentorship and guidance to engineers at all levels, fostering a culture of learning, collaboration, and continuous improvement, encouraging the team to experiment, learn, and iterate on processes and technologies.
- Stay current with LLMs, agent frameworks, AI evaluation techniques, and responsible AI practices, advocating for their adoption where appropriate to drive innovation and productivity within the team.
Execution Excellence:
- Oversee the planning, execution, and delivery of high-impact software projects, ensuring they are completed on time and within budget. Manage team workload and capacity, setting priorities and managing risks and tradeoffs.
- Align team efforts with the strategic direction of the company, understanding the big picture and business needs.
- Demonstrate engineering excellence and service ownership, including cost and quality management of services, and effective production management.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including product management, design, and operations, to ensure alignment and successful delivery of projects. Communicate effectively with stakeholders at all levels.
- Manage delivery of AI-powered features with attention to model lifecycle, evaluation pipelines, and responsible AI tradeoffs alongside standard engineering risks.
- Make deployment decisions with appropriate risk mitigation.
Basic Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
- 6+ years of experience in software development, with 2+ years in a technical leadership role and 2+ years in a people management role or relevant experience.
- Ensure AI-enabled features are introduced safely, transparently, and compliantly.
- Proven track record of leading and delivering large-scale, complex software projects.
- Experience leading teams building SaaS, enterprise, or highly available production systems.
- Deep expertise in one or more programming languages such as C#, .NET, Python, Java, or JavaScript.
- Extensive experience with software architecture and design patterns.
- Strong understanding of cloud technologies and DevOps principles.
- Excellent problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
- Excellent communication and leadership skills, with a demonstrated ability to influence and drive change.
Preferred Qualifications
- Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
- Experience with LLM APIs (Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic) or agent frameworks (Google ADK, LangChain, or similar).
- Familiarity with AI evaluation, observability, and testing strategies for non-deterministic systems.
- Understanding of RAG patterns, prompt engineering, and agentic workflow design.
- Experience with cloud platforms like Azure, AWS, or GCP.
- Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and automation tools.
- Knowledge of agile development methodologies.
- Experience in a complex, matrixed organization.
- Demonstrated commitment to diversity and inclusion initiatives.
- Familiarity with developing accessible technologies.
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.
Equal Opportunity Employer
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.
View The EEO Know Your Rights poster
UKG participates in E-Verify.
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.
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].
The pay range for this position is $129,500 to $186,100. 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 https://www.ukg.com/about-us/careers/benefits
