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 seeking a strategic and highly experienced Senior Manager of Software Engineering to lead multiple teams within the Payroll domain. This role goes beyond first-line management—you will drive organizational outcomes, shape technical strategy, and lead leaders while ensuring the delivery of scalable, secure, and high-performing payroll solutions.
You will be responsible for building and guiding high-performing engineering teams working across a modern technology stack including .NET, C#, PostgreSQL, and cloud-native architectures. You will partner closely with Product, Architecture, and Operations to deliver resilient, compliant, and innovative payroll capabilities.
Our principles are rooted in trust, ownership, deep technical engagement, bias for action, and embracing diverse perspectives. As a senior leader, you will model and scale these principles across teams.
Duties and Responsibilities:
Organizational & Technical Leadership
- Define and drive the technical vision and roadmap for payroll engineering, aligning with broader business and platform strategies.
- Lead multiple engineering teams (including managers and senior engineers), ensuring strong execution, alignment, and delivery of complex initiatives.
- Establish and enforce best practices in software architecture, design, and development using .NET, C#, PostgreSQL, and cloud technologies (Azure/AWS).
- Guide system design for scalability, resiliency, performance, and security across distributed systems and microservices architectures.
- Partner with architecture teams to evolve platform capabilities and modernize legacy systems.
- Champion engineering excellence, including code quality, observability, automation, and operational maturity.
- Drive adoption of DevOps and CI/CD best practices, ensuring efficient and reliable software delivery pipelines.
- Leverage data, telemetry, and service health metrics to proactively manage system reliability and performance.
Leadership & Talent Development:
- Lead, mentor, and develop engineering managers and senior technical leaders, building a strong leadership bench.
- Foster a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement across teams.
- Drive organizational design, workforce planning, and succession strategies.
- Provide regular coaching, feedback, and career development opportunities at all levels.
- Promote an inclusive, high-performing environment that values diverse perspectives and innovation.
Execution & Delivery Excellence:
- Own delivery of large-scale, cross-functional initiatives, ensuring alignment with strategic priorities and business outcomes.
- Manage dependencies, risks, and trade-offs across multiple teams and systems.
- Collaborate closely with Product, Design, and Operations to ensure seamless execution from concept to production.
- Ensure strong operational excellence, including incident management, service ownership, and cost optimization.
- Make high-impact decisions with appropriate risk mitigation strategies.
Engineering Culture & Innovation:
- Drive a culture of experimentation, learning, and continuous improvement.
- Stay current with emerging technologies and industry trends, advocating for adoption where it adds value.
- Improve developer experience, engineering efficiency, and system quality through data-driven insights.
- Champion modern engineering practices, including cloud-native development, infrastructure as code, and automation.
Basic Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
- 10+ years of experience in software development, with 5+ years in technical leadership and 3+ years managing managers or multiple teams.
- Strong background in .NET and C# development within enterprise-scale systems.
- Experience with PostgreSQL or similar relational databases in high-scale environments.
- Proven experience designing and delivering distributed systems and cloud-native applications (Azure, AWS, or GCP).
- Demonstrated success leading large, complex engineering initiatives in Agile environments.
- Deep understanding of software architecture, design patterns, and system trade-offs.
- Strong experience with DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, and modern engineering tooling.
- Excellent leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Master’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
- Experience leading payroll, financial systems, or other highly regulated domains.
- Familiarity with microservices, event-driven architectures, and API-first design.
- Experience operating in a complex, matrixed organization.
- Strong focus on observability, reliability engineering, and production excellence.
- Experience driving cloud transformation or modernization initiatives.
- Commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in engineering organizations.
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 $145,600.00 to $209,300.00 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 https://www.ukg.com/about-us/careers/benefits
