Sr. Staff Software Engineer- Eng

UKG; Atlanta (GA); On-site; USD 146,000 - 209,000; Full time

Job summary

UKG is seeking a Sr. Staff Software Engineer to anchor the technical direction of our core platform and backend services. This senior IC role sets the technical bar, stays hands-on with design and code, and acts as a trusted technical voice across multiple engineering teams.

You will lead architecture reviews, guide development across distributed systems, and champion quality, observability, and CI/CD across organizations.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience with 3+ years in lead or staff capacity.
• Ownership of architecture for a significant backend product area, ideally SaaS.
• Strong proficiency in backend languages and experience with microservices and APIs.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end architecture for core backend services emphasizing scalability, reliability, security, and cost.
• Design patterns and engineering best practices adopted by teams.
• Lead architecture reviews and evaluate emerging technologies for business fit.

Skills

Backend architecture

Leadership

Mentoring

AI coding agents

Cloud platforms

CI/CD

Docker/Kubernetes

API design

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related field

Equivalent practical experience

Tools

Java

C#

Kotlin

Microservices

Distributed systems

API design

Kafka

RabbitMQ

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.

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.

About The Role

We're looking for a Sr. Staff Software Engineer to anchor the technical direction of our core platform and backend services. This is a senior individual-contributor role with architecture-level scope: you'll set the technical bar for how our platform is built, stay hands-on with design and code on the highest-leverage problems, and act as a trusted technical voice across multiple engineering teams.

Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Own end-to-end architecture for core backend services, balancing scalability, reliability, security, and cost.
• Set technical standards, design patterns, and engineering best practices that other teams adopt.
• Lead architecture reviews and major design decisions, and evaluate emerging technologies for real business fit.

Platform Development & Delivery

• Design and build highly available, distributed backend systems and the APIs that expose them.
• Stay hands-on with complex, business-critical implementation alongside the teams you influence.
• Guide teams through the full software development lifecycle, from design through production support.

Engineering Excellence & Operations

• Champion quality, observability, and operational readiness across the services you help design.
• Lead root-cause analysis on complex production issues and drive fixes that improve long-term resilience.
• Raise the bar on code review, testing, and CI/CD practices across teams.

AI-First Engineering

• Use AI coding agents (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor) as a standard part of your workflow to accelerate development, refactor code, and debug production issues without sacrificing quality or security.
• Identify practical opportunities to embed AI-driven capabilities into the platform and into how the team builds software.
• Help establish responsible, secure norms for AI-assisted development across the org.

Mentorship & Talent Development

• Mentor engineers at all levels through design reviews, pairing, and hands-on technical guidance.
• Influence technical direction across teams without relying on formal management authority.

Basic Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 3+ years in a lead or staff-level capacity.
• Proven experience owning architecture for a significant backend product area, ideally in a SaaS environment.
• Strong proficiency in a backend language (e.g., Java, C#, Kotlin) and experience with microservices, distributed systems, and API design.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP), CI/CD pipelines, and container orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Hands-on use of AI coding agents to accelerate day-to-day development work.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction and mentor engineers across teams.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience modernizing legacy platforms or leading large-scale technical migrations.
• Exposure to observability and SRE practices in a high-availability production environment.
• Experience with event-driven architectures and messaging systems (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ).
• Familiarity with AI/ML-enabled engineering workflows beyond coding assistance.

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

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 [e-mail].

The pay range for this position is $145,600.00 to $209,300.00. 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