Lead Software Development Engineer

UKG; Annapolis (MD); On-site; USD 134,000 - 191,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Performance bonus

RSU awards

Job summary

UKG is seeking a Lead Software Development Engineer to provide technical leadership in designing, building, and deploying scalable AI-native enterprise platforms. You will own architecture across cloud-native backends, AI-native orchestration, and Salesforce integrations, guiding critical architectural decisions and mentoring senior engineers.

You will collaborate with product, business, and AI/ML teams to translate complex business objectives into resilient, secure, and highly performant

Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience with design ownership over distributed enterprise systems.
• Deep expertise in backend system design, RESTful and gRPC APIs, event-driven architectures.
• Hands-on experience integrating AI/ML applications, LLM APIs, or agentic frameworks.
• Proven experience designing systems that interface deeply with CRM platforms like Salesforce.

Responsibilities

• Lead platform architecture and AI-native evolution across backend services and APIs.
• Drive observability, security, governance, and performance to meet high-availability SLAs.
• Collaborate across backend, AI/ML, product, and business teams to translate objectives into scalable solutions.

Skills

Backend systems

REST/gRPC APIs

AI integration

Salesforce integration

Job description

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.

Role Overview

As a Lead Software Development Engineer at UKG, you will provide technical leadership in the design, development, and deployment of our next-generation, highly scalable, AI-native enterprise platforms. This pivotal role sits at the intersection of core cloud-native backend systems, advanced customer experience (CX) platforms, and Salesforce ecosystem integrations. You will play a defining role in designing systems that blend traditional enterprise workflows with Agentic AI, large language models (LLMs), and intelligent orchestration to power platforms at a massive global scale.

This role requires a unique blend of deep, hands‑on technical expertise, systems thinking, and strategic influence. You will champion engineering excellence, mentor senior talent, guide critical architectural decisions, and collaborate closely with product, business, and AI/ML teams to translate complex business objectives into resilient, secure, and highly performant platform solutions.

Key Responsibilities

1. Platform Architecture & AI-Native Evolution

Design Scalable Backends: Lead the system design and evolution of highly scalable, secure, and distributed services, and API platforms capable of handling high-volume transaction loads.

AI & Agentic Orchestration: Drive the integration of LLM-based services and autonomous Agentic AI frameworks into the core product architecture, ensuring low latency, high availability, and seamless tool/workflow orchestration.

CRM & Salesforce Integration: Design and optimize enterprise‑grade integration patterns between UKG platforms and Salesforce, ensuring highly secure, real‑time data flows and robust linkages.

2. Engineering Excellence & Operational Stability

High-Volume Data & Migration: Build and optimize complex data integration layers, and resilient data migration pipelines that support business domains.

Observability & Resilience: Establish rigorous standards for system observability, monitoring, alerting, proactive rate‑limiting, and resource management to prevent production bottlenecks and ensure high‑availability SLAs.

Security & Governance: Drive rigorous standards for data privacy, compliance, and secure API structures across all distributed systems.

3. Collaboration & Strategy

Cross-Functional Influence: Conduct technical reviews, facilitate collaborative design sessions across backend and AI/ML teams, and influence technical direction across large, multi-disciplinary organizations.

About You

Basic Qualifications

Years of Experience: 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a track record of design ownership over complex, distributed, and highly available enterprise systems.

Systems Architecture: Deep expertise in backend system design, RESTful/gRPC APIs, event-driven architectures and enterprise system design patterns.

AI Integration: Hands‑on experience integrating, scaling, and productionizing AI/ML applications, LLM APIs, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines, or agentic frameworks into existing software ecosystems.

Salesforce & Enterprise Ecosystems: Proven experience designing systems that interface deeply with major CRM platforms- Salesforce and orchestrating complex integrations.

Leadership & Soft Skills

Problem Solving: Exceptional analytical and problem‑solving skills, with a demonstrated ability to bring structure to highly ambiguous business requirements.

Communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with a proven ability to distill complex architectural decisions for executive, business, and non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

Domain Expertise: Experience building large-scale platforms within Payment Services, Workforce Management, or enterprise SaaS domains.

Data Migration Experience: Prior experience designing large-scale system migrations and system-wide application refactoring initiatives.

Community Engagement: Active contributor to open‑source software, publisher of technical blogs, or speaker at industry engineering conferences.

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 (https://www.eeoc.gov/sites/default/files/2022-10/EEOC_KnowYourRights_screen_reader_10_20.pdf)

UKG participates in E-Verify. View the E-Verify posters here (https://www.e-verify.gov/sites/default/files/everify/posters/EVerifyParticipationPoster.pdf) .

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 [e-mail] .

• The pay range for this position is $133,900 to $190,750.
• The pay range for California is $154,000 to 219,00.
• 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