Sr. Staff Forward Deployed EngineerRole Overview We are seeking a Senior Staff Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) to lead complex enterprise engagements across UKG's HCM, Payroll, and Workforce Management ecosystem.
This role operates as a principal architect and strategic advisor, combining enterprise systems design, agentic AI architecture, and hands-on engineering.
You will embed with strategic customers to deliver production-grade integrations, AI-enabled workflows, and reusable platform patterns that accelerate time-to-value and expansion.
This is not traditional consulting - you will ship production systems and influence product and platform direction.
Why This Role Matters You will directly shape how enterprise customers adopt UKG's platform and AI capabilities.
This role drives customer outcomes, platform leverage, and product evolution - forming a critical link between enterprise reality and engineering strategy.
Key Responsibilities - Lead architecture for complex enterprise ecosystems across HCM, Payroll, WFM, ERP, IAM, and adjacent systems
- Design and deliver production-grade integrations, automation, and AI-enabled workflows
- Advise customers on agentic AI adoption, including orchestration, decisioning, and human-in-the-loop systems
- Translate business problems into scalable architectures combining systems + AI capabilities
- Act as a trusted technical advisor to CIO/CTO-level stakeholders
- Drive reusable accelerators, templates, and reference architectures
- Mentor and guide other FDEs; set technical standards and best practices
- Influence product roadmap through structured field feedback
Agentic AI Leadership: - Guide enterprise customers on safe, compliant, and scalable AI adoption
- Design and prototype agentic workflows integrated with enterprise systems
- Identify high-value use cases for AI-driven automation and orchestration
- Balance AI innovation with enterprise constraints (security, governance, auditability)
- Contribute reusable AI patterns and reference implementations to the platform
Qualifications - 10+ years in software engineering, architecture, or distributed systems
- Deep experience with enterprise integrations (APIs, event-driven systems, data pipelines, IAM)
- Strong cloud architecture experience (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
- Experience building production-grade systems in enterprise environments
- Strong customer-facing and executive communication skills
- Ability to operate autonomously and lead ambiguous, high-impact initiatives
AI / Systems Expertise: - Experience with AI-enabled systems, LLMs, copilots, or automation frameworks
- Familiarity with agentic AI concepts (agents, orchestration, tool use)
- Understanding of enterprise AI constraints (security, privacy, compliance)
- Ability to translate AI strategy into production-ready architectures
- Strong systems thinking across human + AI + system interactions
Success Metrics: - Reduction in enterprise Time-to-Value
- Successful, scalable production deployments
- Reusable assets and AI patterns adopted across customers
- Expansion ARR influenced
- Executive-level customer satisfaction
The pay range for this position is $145,600 to $240,695. 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
