PhD in a quantitative field plus 5+ years of industry experience, or Master's degree plus 10+ years in data science or a related discipline.
Expert-level fluency in generative AI, agentic AI systems, LLMs, and other DS specialty areas.
Experience in driving multi-year technical strategy with measurable impacts across multiple teams.
Ability to influence cross-functional roadmaps and decisions without direct authority.
Advanced programming skills in Python and fluency in ML frameworks, data tools, and cloud platforms.
Experience in ensuring data quality and governance at an organizational scale.
Exceptional communication skills for technical discussions with peers and executives.
Responsibilities
Define and set the long-term Data Science technical strategy and roadmap.
Design multi-team architecture for scalable Data Science practices organization-wide.
Identify and drive portfolio-wide improvement opportunities for Data Science capabilities.
Make key organizational decisions balancing competing interests across teams.
Establish org-wide standards for AI and ML development, driving adoption of critical tools.
Translate business needs into data science investments for measurable goals.
Mentor senior data scientists and shape learning and development strategies.
Benefits
Opportunity to join a leading company at the forefront of Human Capital Management innovation.
Engage in impactful work utilizing the most complete workforce datasets.
Professional growth through mentorship and talent development initiatives.
Involvement in shaping the technical strategy of an influential Data Science team.
Access to cutting-edge AI and ML technologies relevant to business applications.
Full Job Description
About the Role:
At UKG, we are at the forefront of innovation leading the next wave of disruption in the Human Capital Management industry. With our unparalleled dataset - the most complete view into our customers' workforce - we are uniquely positioned to build AI-powered solutions that fundamentally change how businesses manage their people. Our Data Science team sits at the intersection of cutting-edge research and real-world impact, building models and intelligent systems at scale that serve millions of employees and managers every day.
We are looking for a Senior Staff Data Scientist (P5) who will set the multi-year, multi-team technical strategy and deliver it through direct implementation and broad technical leadership. Operating at portfolio scope, you will influence roadmaps across multiple teams, drive step-change improvements in our Data Science capabilities, and serve as a recognized authority whose decisions shape how data science is practiced across the organization.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Technical strategy & vision: Define and own the long-term Data Science technical strategy - the multi-year roadmap for platform capabilities, tooling investments, and methodology evolution. Anticipate challenges and opportunities over multi-year horizon and build stakeholder alignment for strategic initiatives. Align Data Science capabilities with broader business strategy.
Architecture & systems design: Design coherent, multi-team architecture that enable DATA SCIENCE work across the organization. Create architectural patterns adopted broadly, anticipating scale and evolution needs to minimize rework as the organization grows. Review and guide critical architecture decisions across the portfolio.
Results & end-to-end ownership: Identify portfolio wide improvement opportunities. Execute large-scale projects spanning multiple teams and value streams with year-long horizons. Drive step-change improvements in DS capabilities. Own decisions with area-wide impact and create scalable solutions that reduce toil across the organization.
Decision-making & judgment: Make org-level decisions balancing multiple competing interests. Avoid locally optimal decisions that create downstream costs. Create frameworks that enable others to make consistently good decisions. Evaluate major technology investments - build vs. buy, vendor selection, and platform commitments.
AI & ML craft leadership: Define org-wide standards for AI and ML development - selecting frameworks and architectural patterns teams should follow. Evaluate emerging AI/ML frameworks across the industry and drive adoption of high-value tools. Create evaluation frameworks and best practices for agentic systems. Champion experimentation with novel AI architectures.
Business acumen & stakeholder influence: Develop a deep understanding of UKG's business model and competitive strategy. Translate business needs into DS investments, identifying which ML capabilities would most accelerate business goals. Influence business decisions with DS insights at the executive level. Influence roadmaps across multiple teams for measurable business impact.
Mentorship & talent development: Mentor senior ICs; spread knowledge across teams. Be active in senior hiring and build the DS talent pipeline. Shape org-wide learning and development strategy. Model continuous learning by seeking feedback from diverse sources including senior leaders and peers at peer companies.
Innovation & agility: Remain resilient through significant organizational change and help the organization navigate uncertainty. Push boundaries with breakthrough approaches. Connect emerging technologies to business opportunities and create space for innovation across teams.
About you,
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
PhD in a quantitative field plus 5+ years of industry experience, or Master's degree plus 10+ years of experience in data science, machine learning, or a closely related discipline.
Expert-level fluency in multiple DS specialty areas - generative AI, agentic AI systems, LLMs and foundation models, deep learning, time-series forecasting, regression, classification, or NLP.
Demonstrated ability to own and drive multi-year technical strategy spanning multiple teams and product areas, with measurable impact across value streams.
Proven ability to influence roadmaps, platform decisions, and cross-functional teams - including product, engineering, and senior leadership - without direct managerial authority.
Advanced programming skills in Python; fluency in ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow), data tools (Pandas, NumPy, SQL), and cloud platforms such as GCP / Agent Platform and BigQuery, or equivalent.
Experience ensuring data quality and governance at organizational scale; influencing data strategy across multiple teams.
Exceptional ability to communicate architectural tradeoffs, multi-year strategy, and quantitative results to both technical peers and executive stakeholders.
Experience with model fine-tuning (SLMs, RLHF, distillation), multi-modal architectures, or advanced retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
Advanced knowledge of GCP technologies: Agent Platform, BigQuery, GKE, Dataflow, or equivalent infrastructure for large-scale ML workloads.
Hands-on experience designing and productionizing multi-agent systems using agentic frameworks (e.g., LangGraph, Model Context Protocol) and defining best practices for their org-wide adoption.
Experience across multiple HCM product domains (e.g., Workforce Management, Talent & Recruiting, Pay & Compensation, People ) with insight into how DS drives value differently across each.
Experience setting org-wide coding standards and creating foundational libraries and frameworks.
Familiarity with responsible AI principles: fairness, interpretability, privacy-preserving ML, and model risk management at scale.
The pay range for this position is $145,600 to $209,300. 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
About Ultimate Software
Ultimate Software is a leading provider of cloud-based human capital management (HCM) solutions. The company's UltiPro platform offers a comprehensive suite of HR, payroll, and talent management tools designed to help organizations manage their workforce more effectively. Ultimate Software was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in Weston, Florida. The company has received numerous awards for its workplace culture and has been recognized as one of the best places to work in the United States. In 2019, Ultimate Software was acquired by private equity firm Hellman & Friedman in a deal valued at $11 billion.
