Principal Software Engineer- Eng

UKG; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

UKG in Seattle seeks an experienced Principal Architect to define and evolve the architecture of HCM foundation services, supporting HR, Recruiting, Benefits, Pay, and more. You will drive decisions across APIs, data access, and platform libraries, ensuring high availability and security.

You will lead reviews, set engineering standards, and build reusable capabilities used by multiple product teams. The role requires deep expertise in .NET Core, distributed systems, and modernizing legacy

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including senior, staff, or principal level.
• Deep experience designing and building distributed systems using .NET Core and modern backend architectures.
• Experience building and supporting large-scale, business-critical platform services used by multiple product teams.
• Track record of influencing technical direction across teams or organizations.
• Ability to set architectural standards and drive adoption across multiple teams.
• Strong problem-solving skills to convert ambiguous problems into clear designs.
• Experience applying AI-assisted engineering practices or partnering with AI/ML teams to productionize capabilities.
• Proven ability to lead complex, cross-functional initiatives with significant business impact.
• Experience with HCM, payroll, benefits, recruiting, or other regulated enterprise systems.
• Familiarity with AI concepts like anomaly detection and model inference pipelines.
• Experience designing systems with strict compliance and data privacy requirements.
• Front-end experience supporting or integrating with Angular applications.
• Background in event-driven, batch, or service-oriented architectures.
• Track record of shaping long-term shared platform architecture across domains.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve the architecture for HCM foundation services supporting HR, Recruiting, Benefits, Pay, and related teams.
• Drive decisions across shared services, APIs, data access patterns, platform libraries, build systems, and integration points.
• Ensure systems are designed for high availability, correctness, scalability, observability, security, auditability, and regulatory compliance.
• Lead architecture and design reviews; set standards for system design, code quality, operational readiness, and cross-team adoption.
• Build and evolve reusable platform capabilities, service contracts, and libraries to reduce duplicated work across HCM product teams.
• Design data models, persistence strategies, and service-layer patterns across relational and NoSQL systems.
• Create secure, reliable APIs and event-driven patterns for domain teams to consume HCM foundation capabilities.
• Support modernization efforts such as service decomposition, .NET Core enablement, build modernization, and migration from legacy platforms.

Skills

Distributed systems design

Leadership across teams

AI-assisted engineering

High availability, observability, and,

Regulatory compliance

Tools

.NET Core

Angular

RESTful APIs

Job description

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve the architecture for HCM foundation services that support HR, Recruiting, Benefits, Pay, and other consuming teams.
• Drive architectural decisions across shared services, APIs, data access patterns, platform libraries, build systems, and integration points.
• Ensure systems are designed for high availability, correctness, scalability, observability, security, auditability, and regulatory compliance.
• Lead architecture and design reviews; set standards for system design, code quality, operational readiness, and cross‑team adoption.
• Build and evolve reusable platform capabilities, service contracts, and libraries that reduce duplicated work across HCM product teams.
• Design data models, persistence strategies, and service‑layer patterns across relational and NoSQL systems where appropriate.
• Create secure, reliable APIs and event‑driven patterns that allow domain teams to consume HCM foundation capabilities consistently.
• Support modernization efforts such as service decomposition, .NET Core enablement, build modernization, and migration from legacy platform dependencies.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 3+ years operating at a senior, staff, or principal level.
• Deep experience designing and building distributed systems using .NET Core and modern backend architectures.
• Experience building and supporting large‑scale, business‑critical platform services, shared APIs, or foundational systems consumed by multiple product teams.
• Track record of influencing technical direction across multiple teams or organizations.
• Demonstrated ability to set architectural standards and drive adoption.
• Strong problem‑solving skills with the ability to break ambiguous problems into clear technical designs.
• Experience applying AI‑assisted engineering practices or partnering with AI, ML, or data teams to productionize intelligent capabilities.
• Proven ability to lead highly complex, cross‑functional initiatives with significant business impact.
• Experience with HCM, workforce management, payroll, benefits, recruiting, or other highly regulated enterprise systems.
• Familiarity with AI concepts such as anomaly detection, rule augmentation, model inference pipelines, or decision‑support systems.
• Experience designing systems with strict requirements for compliance, auditability, and data privacy.
• Front‑end experience supporting or integrating with Angular applications.
• Background in event‑driven, batch, hybrid processing, or service‑oriented platform architectures.
• Track record of shaping long‑term shared platform architecture across multiple teams, domains, or product lines.
• Experience modernizing legacy systems or leading large‑scale technical transformations.