Principal Software Engineer (AI/ML Architect)

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.

 ***UKG is unable to offer sponsorship for this position.***

About the Role:
We are searching for an exceptionally skilled and visionary Principal Software Engineer with deep expertise in building, deploying, and scaling generative AI applications. As a key individual contributor at the Principal level, you will drive the architecture, strategy, and development of groundbreaking AI technologies that support our long-term mission.

The Principal Software Engineer, AI/ML will lead the technical vision, strategy, and architectural direction for our GenAI initiatives. As a recognized thought leader, you will help guide the company to stay at the forefront of AI innovation, continuously integrating the latest advancements in generative AI into our products and processes. This role demands a blend of technical depth, visionary thinking, and the ability to influence and elevate company-wide AI practices. You will play a pivotal role in shaping a transformative journey, empowering our organization to harness GenAI in profound ways across all products.

Responsibilities:
• Architectural Vision & Strategy: Define and drive the generative AI architecture strategy, ensuring UKG remains at the leading edge of AI innovation. Develop and communicate a cohesive architectural vision that aligns with business goals, enabling the seamless integration of GenAI capabilities across our product suite.
• Technical Leadership: Serve as the primary technical visionary for generative AI, providing hands-on guidance in advanced methods (e.g., transformer models, diffusion models, GANs) and setting technical standards that ensure scalability, security, and efficiency.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with executive leadership, product management, data science, and engineering teams to establish and prioritize GenAI initiatives. Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure alignment on requirements and objectives, driving the infusion of AI capabilities across products.
• Innovation & Research: Conduct hands-on, advanced research in generative AI, staying current with emerging technologies, industry trends, and best practices. Lead the exploration and implementation of state-of-the-art GenAI techniques to enhance product value and drive a competitive edge.
• Mentorship & Culture Building: Mentor and influence senior engineering leaders, fostering a culture of AI excellence, thought leadership, and continuous innovation. Champion best practices in AI/ML development, MLOps, CI/CD processes, and quality assurance to ensure high standards across the organization.
• Community Engagement: Act as an ambassador for generative AI internally and externally, representing UKG in the AI community through publications, speaking engagements, and industry forums.
• Scalable Solutions: Oversee the deployment of large-scale AI models, ensuring they are optimized for performance, cost, and resource efficiency in production environments. Establish guidelines for high-quality, production-ready AI/ML systems that can scale with business needs.
• Governance & Standards: Define and enforce development methodologies, CI/CD standards, and architectural guidelines for AI solutions. Maintain documentation of architectural decisions and technical roadmaps, ensuring a sustainable foundation for future AI-driven capabilities.

Qualifications:
• Educational Background: MS or PhD in Computer Science, AI, Machine Learning, or a related field, or equivalent industry experience.
• Experience: 12+ years in software development and AI, with at least 5 years of hands-on experience in generative AI, NLP, or related fields. Proven expertise in architecting and deploying large-scale AI/ML systems in production environments.
• Technical Proficiency: Expert-level skills in programming languages (e.g., Python, Java) and AI frameworks (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch). Strong understanding of cloud platforms (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure) and MLOps practices for large-scale model training and deployment.
• AI Methodologies: In-depth knowledge of generative AI methodologies, including transformer models, diffusion models, GANs, large language models, and multi-modal architectures. Familiarity with NLP and machine learning algorithms, such as linear and logistic regression, decision trees, and clustering methods.
• Industry Influence: Recognized thought leader in AI, with a record of publications in top-tier AI conferences/journals (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, CVPR) and a strong network within the AI research community.
• Problem-Solving & Strategy: Exceptional problem-solving skills and a proven ability to influence and implement long-term AI-driven strategic initiatives.

Preferred Qualifications:
• Compliance & Responsible AI: Experience working in high-compliance environments or with privacy-preserving AI techniques. Strong familiarity with trends in responsible AI, model interpretability, and ethical AI practices.
• Optimization Expertise: Proven record of optimizing AI models for cost-efficiency at scale through model compression, distillation, and efficient deployment strategies.
• Cloud & DevOps Knowledge: Strong experience with cloud-native architectures, containerization (e.g., Kubernetes), and CI/CD pipeline automation (e.g., Terraform, GitHub Actions).

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 maintaining a diverse and inclusive work environment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, marital status, familial status, sexual orientation, pregnancy, genetic information, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, veteran status, and any other legally protected status under federal, state, or local anti-discrimination laws.

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].
The pay range for this position  is  $163,900.00 to $235,550USD. There is a different range applicable to the Seattle WA area. 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