Sr. Staff Software Engineer- Eng

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 Team

The Engineering Platform team is responsible for building and evolving the foundational platforms, frameworks, and automation capabilities that power software delivery across UKG. We enable hundreds of engineers to build, deploy, secure, and operate applications at scale through modern cloud-native platforms and developer-centric tooling.

We are seeking a Senior Staff Engineer to serve as a technical leader within our Kubernetes Platform Engineering organization. This role requires deep expertise in software engineering, cloud-native technologies, DevOps practices, platform architecture, and large-scale systems engineering.

The ideal candidate is not only an expert in Kubernetes and platform technologies but also a strong software engineer who has spent years building production-grade systems, driving SDLC maturity, and leading strategic engineering initiatives that span multiple teams and organizations.

This individual will influence technical direction across the organization, define platform strategy, mentor senior engineers, and drive adoption of engineering excellence practices throughout the software development lifecycle.

About the Role

-> Technical Leadership & Strategy

Define and drive the long-term technical vision for Kubernetes and cloud-native platform capabilities across UKG.

Lead architecture discussions and strategic initiatives spanning multiple engineering organizations.

Influence platform modernization efforts that improve developer productivity, system reliability, security, and operational efficiency.

Partner with Product Management, Architects, Security, Infrastructure, and Engineering leaders to align technical investments with business priorities.

Act as a recognized subject matter expert and trusted technical advisor across the organization.

-> Platform Engineering

Design, build, and evolve large-scale Kubernetes platforms supporting mission-critical workloads.

Develop reusable platform services, operator frameworks, automation tooling, and developer self-service capabilities.

Drive platform standardization, governance, scalability, resilience, and operational excellence.

Lead adoption of modern cloud-native technologies and best practices across engineering teams.

Establish platform capabilities that enable secure, compliant, and efficient software delivery.

-> Software Engineering Excellence

Write high-quality, maintainable, scalable production code.

Lead the development of platform services and automation systems using modern programming languages.

Establish engineering standards, coding practices, testing strategies, and software quality frameworks.

Drive architecture reviews, design reviews, and code review practices across teams.

Champion observability-first engineering principles including monitoring, logging, tracing, and operational telemetry.

-> DevOps & SDLC Transformation

Lead enterprise-scale DevOps initiatives that improve software delivery velocity and reliability.

Design and implement CI/CD frameworks, developer workflows, deployment automation, and release management solutions.

Drive engineering maturity improvements across the complete software development lifecycle.

Establish best practices for build systems, source control management, testing automation, security scanning, and deployment strategies.

Partner with engineering teams to improve developer experience and operational efficiency.

-> Large-Scale Program Leadership

Lead highly complex technical programs with organization-wide impact.

Drive cross-functional execution across multiple teams and stakeholders.

Break down ambiguous business problems into scalable technical solutions.

Influence prioritization, technical roadmaps, and execution strategies.

Manage technical risks and ensure successful delivery of strategic initiatives.

-> Reliability, Security & Operations

Drive reliability engineering practices across platform services.

Lead incident analysis, root cause investigations, and systemic improvements.

Establish operational excellence standards and SRE best practices.

Ensure secure platform design, infrastructure automation, and compliance requirements are integrated into engineering workflows.

Improve service health through automation, proactive monitoring, and operational maturity.

-> Mentorship & Influence

Mentor senior engineers and emerging technical leaders across the organization.

Foster a culture of technical excellence, innovation, learning, and ownership.

Provide guidance on architecture, design patterns, software craftsmanship, and platform engineering best practices.

Drive technical decision-making through influence rather than authority.

Basic Qualifications

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.

10+ years of software engineering experience.

8+ years of experience building large-scale cloud-native, DevOps, platform engineering, or infrastructure engineering solutions.

Demonstrated experience leading organization-wide technical initiatives and complex engineering programs.

Expert-level proficiency in one or more programming languages such as: Go, Java, Python, C# ,JavaScript/TypeScript

Extensive experience designing and developing production-grade distributed systems.

Deep understanding of software architecture, design patterns, scalability, resiliency, and performance engineering.

Strong experience operating Kubernetes at enterprise scale.

Hands-on experience developing Kubernetes Operators, Controllers, Admission Controllers, or custom platform extensions.

Deep expertise with container technologies including Kubernetes, Docker, Helm, and related ecosystem tools.

Extensive experience with CI/CD platforms such as GitHub Actions, GitHub Enterprise, ArgoCD, Flux, Jenkins, or equivalent technologies.

Strong experience with Infrastructure as Code using Terraform and configuration management tools such as Ansible.

Extensive experience with public cloud platforms including Azure, AWS, and GCP.

Strong understanding of modern SDLC practices and DevSecOps methodologies.

Proven experience driving engineering excellence, platform adoption, and developer productivity initiatives.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience designing and operating Internal Developer Platforms (IDP).

Deep understanding of Kubernetes networking, service meshes, ingress, gateway APIs, and traffic management.

Experience operating large-scale multi-cluster and multi-region Kubernetes environments.

Strong understanding of API gateways, edge routing, and service-to-service communication patterns.

Experience with observability platforms such as Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, Datadog, New Relic, or Splunk.

Hands-on experience with security engineering, policy enforcement, workload identity, secrets management, and zero-trust architectures.

Proven experience leading platform transformations and cloud modernization initiatives.

Experience influencing engineering organizations of 100+ engineers.

Contributions to open-source projects or active participation in cloud-native communities.

Demonstrated thought leadership in platform engineering, cloud-native technologies, or DevOps practices.

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.

UKG is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion in the workplace, including the recruitment process.

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 [email protected]