Principal Technical Program Manager
UKG
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Job summary
UKG is seeking a Principal Technical Program Manager to lead strategically significant, technically complex programs spanning Product, Engineering, and business functions. You will translate opportunities into coordinated execution, coordinating new software offerings, business capabilities, and third-party ecosystems.
You will collaborate with Product, Engineering, TPMs, and business teams to define and drive path forward, balancing near-term delivery with scalable operating models for rapid
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree or higher in a relevant field.
- 8+ years of Program Management or similar leadership experience.
- Experience leading cross-functional initiatives from discovery to delivery.
- Strong technical and product literacy with architectural awareness.
- Strategic thinking and ability to drive decisions amid ambiguity.
- Business acumen and ability to connect technical work to customer value.
- Excellent leadership and communication without direct authority.
- Experience with Kanban, flow-based delivery, automation, and continuous improvement.
- AI-forward mindset for AI-enabled software delivery.
Responsibilities
- Lead strategically significant programs across Product, Engineering, and business functions.
- Develop informed recommendations using data and systems thinking; frame tradeoffs.
- Translate strategy into integrated execution across product, technology, and operations.
- Account for architecture, data, security, performance, and observability in solutions.
- Drive discovery when requirements emerge and align stakeholders to decisions.
- Establish scalable operating practices and transition ownership to durable teams.
- Measure adoption, revenue, and operational health with clear ownership.
- Influence senior stakeholders to drive accountability and reduce complexity.
- Coach other TPMs and advance program management practices.
Skills
Education
Tools
Job description
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.
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.
The Technical Program Management team is part of the Product organization and partners across Product, Engineering, and business functions to turn strategy into coordinated execution. Our TPMs lead complex, cross-functional initiatives, creating clarity, enabling decisions, managing dependencies and risk, and helping teams deliver measurable customer and business outcomes. This role specifically supports UKG Ready.
UKG Ready: Ready for what's next
UKG Ready® brings HR, pay, and workforce management together for growing organizations with lean teams. It replaces spreadsheets without the cost and complexity of enterprise suites.
Powered by UKG’s scale across 80,000 organizations and 65 million workers, Ready helps handle data, reporting, compliance updates, and AI-driven insights. Managers get answers quickly, while the platform keeps pace with state expansion, union rules, and growth—without requiring a re-platform.
We are seeking a Principal Technical Program Manager to lead strategically significant, technically complex programs that span organizational and functional boundaries. You will help translate new product and business opportunities into coordinated execution, including initiatives involving new software offerings, business capabilities, and third-party ecosystems.
You will partner closely with Product, Engineering, other TPMs, and business teams to create forward motion when requirements, solutions, or operating models are not yet fully defined. You will develop recommendations, frame tradeoffs, advocate for scalable solutions, and drive integrated execution once decisions are made. Success requires balancing near‑term delivery with the technical and operational capabilities needed for rapid and sustained growth.
- Lead strategically significant programs across Product, Engineering, and business functions, creating clarity and momentum through ambiguity while maintaining alignment to customer and business outcomes.
- Develop informed recommendations using data, technical and business context, and systems thinking. Identify gaps, frame tradeoffs, challenge assumptions, and drive unresolved questions toward decisions.
- Translate strategic objectives into integrated execution across product, technology, operations, and business workstreams, proactively managing dependencies, risks, decisions, and readiness.
- Apply technical breadth and depth to ensure solutions account for architecture, integrations, data, security, performance, scalability, resiliency and disaster recovery, observability, and operational support.
- Lead through discovery when new requirements, product capabilities, or technical solutions emerge, bringing the right stakeholders together to define and drive the path forward.
- Establish scalable operating practices for new products and business capabilities, emphasizing automation, resiliency, repeatability, and clear ownership; prove and transition those practices to durable functional owners.
- Ensure health and measurement mechanisms are established to measure adoption, usage, revenue, operational health, and intended outcomes, with clear ownership and feedback loops.
- Influence and align senior stakeholders without direct authority, driving accountability while constructively challenging approaches that create unnecessary complexity or barriers to scale.
- Strengthen Program Management capability by coaching other TPMs, sharing effective practices, and improving how complex work is planned and executed.
- Help evolve software delivery through Kanban and flow-based practices, automation, AI-enabled and increasingly agentic ways of working, and continuous improvement.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business, a related field.
- 8+ years of Program Management or similar program leadership experience, with a track record of leading complex software initiatives in a SaaS environment.
- Experience leading cross-functional initiatives from definition and discovery through delivery, launch, and operationalization.
- Strong technical and product literacy, with the ability to engage credibly on architecture, integrations, scale, performance, resiliency and operational implications.
- Demonstrated strategic thinking and problem solving, including developing recommendations, navigating ambiguity, and driving decisions.
- Strong business acumen and ability to connect technical execution to customer value and business outcomes.
- Excellent leadership, influence, and communication skills, with the ability to create alignment and accountability across teams and senior stakeholders without direct authority.
- Experience adapting and improving modern software delivery practices, including Kanban, flow-based delivery, automation, and continuous improvement.
- AI-forward mindset with the technical curiosity and adaptability to adopt and help shape AI-enabled and increasingly agentic ways of working.
- Able to perform in a hybrid‑office role, requiring three or more days per week in the office.
- Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or a related field.
- Experience launching and operationalizing new software products, business capabilities, or lines of business, including establishing scalable operating mechanisms beyond initial launch.
- Experience with third‑party ecosystems, commercial partnerships, or partner integrations in a SaaS or software product environment.
- Experience leading initiatives where product, technical, commercial, and operational requirements emerge through discovery across multiple business functions.
- Experience with large‑scale system architecture and complex integration environments.
- Demonstrated experience applying AI or automation to software delivery, Program Management, operational processes, or decision support.
- Customer‑centric, systems‑oriented problem solver comfortable challenging assumptions, identifying second‑order implications, and leading through uncertainty.
- Experience with JIRA, Confluence, and Power BI.
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.
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. View the E‑Verify posters here.
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 UKGCareers@ukg.com.
The pay range for this position is $169,400 to $241,400. 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
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