Sr. Staff Software Engineer- Eng

UKG•Seattle, WA

4d•$145,600 - $240,695

About The Position

UKG is seeking a Sr Staff Software Engineer with deep platform and full-stack expertise to play a critical leadership role on the Pro Foundation team, which owns foundational HCM platform capabilities and shared services used by HR, Recruiting, Pay, and Benefits applications. In this role, you will drive the architecture, design, modernization, and delivery of highly scalable SaaS services that improve reliability, extensibility, and developer productivity across the Pro HCM portfolio. You will work in an agile environment, partnering closely with engineers, product managers, architects, and leadership to deliver secure, performant, accessible, and reusable platform capabilities. You will be responsible not only for building systems, but for defining how shared foundation services should be built, operated, and adopted across product teams. You will champion an AI-first engineering mindset, leveraging modern AI capabilities to accelerate development, improve code quality, enhance system reliability, and transform how teams build and operate software.

Requirements

8+ years of experience in enterprise software development, including significant experience building scalable services or platform capabilities
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent experience
Experience designing distributed systems, APIs, integration patterns, and reusable platform components
Experience with messaging systems such as Kafka or RabbitMQ
Strong understanding of design patterns, OOP, BDD, TDD, secure engineering, and production readiness practices
Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and cloud platforms; GCP experience preferred
Proficiency with Git and modern CI/CD practices
Familiarity with Agile methodologies and cross-team delivery models
Track record of influencing technical direction across multiple teams or organizations. Demonstrated ability to set architectural standards and drive adoption.
Proven ability to lead highly complex, cross-functional initiatives with significant business impact.

Nice To Haves

Experience leading cross-team platform, modernization, or shared services initiatives
Strong background in performance, scalability, reliability, and operational excellence
Experience modernizing legacy systems and enabling adoption of modern cloud-native patterns
Exposure to observability, SRE practices, service ownership models, and incident response
Experience with HCM, payroll, benefits, recruiting, or workforce platform domains
Experience with AI/ML tools in engineering workflows or product capabilities

Responsibilities

Own the architecture and design of enterprise-scale foundational HCM platform services used across HR, Recruiting, Pay, and Benefits applications
Define and drive technical strategy, standards, and best practices for shared services, platform libraries, APIs, and modernization patterns
Design scalable services and integration patterns that support modern web, mobile, and cross-suite HCM experiences
Lead complex system design discussions and influence long-term technical decisions across product and platform teams
Evaluate and incorporate AI-driven solutions and architectures where they provide measurable value to engineering productivity, reliability, or customer outcomes
Lead the development of high-impact platform capabilities, shared services, and modernization efforts across the Pro HCM foundation layer
Ensure solutions meet performance, scalability, reliability, security, accessibility, and operability requirements
Guide teams through all phases of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), from design through production readiness and adoption
Contribute hands-on to critical areas of the codebase, especially where architectural direction, technical depth, or cross-team alignment is needed
Champion a culture of quality-first development for shared foundation services
Utilize AI to improve test coverage, defect detection, code review, documentation, and system observability
Review code and system designs to ensure maintainability, scalability, security, and adoption readiness
Drive improvements in CI/CD, observability, automation, and operational excellence for platform services
Collaborate across HR, Recruiting, Pay, Benefits, and related platform teams to align architecture and deliver cohesive foundation capabilities
Lead cross-team initiatives that reduce duplication, clarify ownership, and improve adoption of shared services and platform patterns
Partner with product and architecture leaders to refine requirements, define technical direction, and establish clear handoff and support models
Lead troubleshooting and root-cause analysis for complex production issues involving shared foundation services
Improve system reliability, monitoring, incident response, and service ownership practices
Participate in and improve on-call, support, and escalation processes for critical platform capabilities
Mentor and develop engineers across multiple teams
Raise the bar for engineering standards, design thinking, code quality, and operational ownership
Promote adoption of modern technologies, reusable platform patterns, tools, and methodologies
Drive adoption of an AI-first approach across the software development lifecycle
Leverage AI tools to accelerate development, improve code quality, and strengthen engineering documentation
Apply AI to problem-solving, including defect resolution, performance optimization, and reliability improvements
Identify opportunities to embed AI-driven capabilities into platform services, engineering workflows, and shared tooling
Establish best practices for responsible, secure, and compliant AI usage
Stay current with emerging AI technologies and guide teams on practical adoption