Founding Engineering Manager, AI Labs

Quiet Capital; Town of Pittsford (NY); Hybrid; USD 149,000 - 213,000; Full time

Job summary

Paylocity is building AI Labs in the Rochester, NY area and seeks a technical, hands-on manager to lead a founding team of early-career engineers from day one. You’ll shape the team’s direction, mentor engineers, and ensure delivery of scalable AI-enabled solutions.

Based in the Rochester area with hybrid work alongside your team in Pittsford, you’ll partner with executives, help hire locally, and align projects with Paylocity’s broader goals while staying current on AI trends.

Qualifications

• BS degree or higher in Computer Science, Information Technology, or equivalent experience
• 5+ years of software engineering experience, including 2+ years in a formal engineering management role
• Hands-on experience building and maintaining applications with .NET and C#
• Hands-on experience designing, developing, and operating cloud-based solutions in AWS
• Experience building applications that integrate AI technologies into customer-facing or internal applications
• Experience working in agile development environments, including driving process improvements
• Proven experience leading, mentoring, and developing engineering teams
• Strong collaboration across Product, Design, and Business functions

Responsibilities

• Lead and manage a founding team of early-career engineers, co-located with you in Rochester, ensuring their work stays aligned with AI Labs' bets and Paylocity's broader goals.
• Mentor and coach technically and professionally
• Create real growth opportunities, recognize achievement publicly, and reward high performance appropriately.
• Give regular, direct feedback on individual performance.
• Build a team you invest in deeply and expect to see graduate into other engineering roles across Paylocity.
• Actively source and hire engineers locally; run technical interviews and screens for your team.
• Help lead the summer internship program based in Rochester, including selecting each year's cohort and mentoring interns day to day.
• Build and maintain Paylocity's relationship with local universities, including RIT, to establish a consistent, repeatable early-career pipeline.
• Represent Paylocity at campus events and technical community groups in the Rochester area as opportunities arise.
• Drive technical execution and delivery of high-quality, scalable solutions.
• Dive into complex systems and concepts deeply enough to credibly guide your team through them.
• Ensure your team's work follows security best practices and compliance standards.
• Facilitate and continuously improve your team's processes.
• Partner directly with business stakeholders and engineering counterparts across the org.
• Set realistic expectations with stakeholders and leadership, and raise risks early.
• Manage team capacity and resourcing so the right people are on the right work.
• Shape your team's and AI Labs' broader strategy through ongoing collaboration with leadership.
• Stay current on industry and AI trends and bring back what's actually useful.

Skills

C# / .NET

AWS

AI integration

Agile development

Mentoring engineers

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

BS in Computer Science / IT or equivalent

Job description

Paylocity is building AI Labs in the Rochester, NY area and seeks a technical, hands-on manager to lead a founding team of early-career engineers from day one. You’ll shape the team’s direction, mentor engineers, and ensure delivery of scalable AI-enabled solutions.

Based in the Rochester area with hybrid work alongside your team in Pittsford, you’ll partner with executives, help hire locally, and align projects with Paylocity’s broader goals while staying current on AI trends.