About the Role

UKG is looking for a Sr. Staff Software Engineer to provide strategic technical leadership for our cloud platform and infrastructure automation. This is a senior individual-contributor (IC) track role - you'll drive architecture and technical direction across teams through influence and expertise, not people management.

You'll own the architectural design and implementation of scalable, secure, and automated Google Cloud infrastructure, using Terraform and Ansible to establish repeatable deployment processes. You'll lead complex initiatives from strategy through operational readiness, mentor engineers, and partner with cross-functional stakeholders to improve platform reliability, deployment quality, security, and delivery effectiveness across UKG.

What You'll Do
• Architect Google Cloud infrastructure - design secure, scalable, cost-effective cloud platforms using Terraform, with reusable Ansible playbooks and standardized configuration management.
• Own CI/CD and release engineering - design and continuously improve pipelines, automated testing, and deployment workflows (GitHub Actions, Jenkins).
• Set the technical bar - establish and enforce best practices for infrastructure as code, observability, security, compliance, and operational readiness across teams.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives - run architecture reviews and technical evaluations, and partner with application, security, architecture, database, and operations teams on integration and deployment.
• Drive AI-assisted infrastructure - identify and implement secure AI- and agent-driven solutions (including MCP server/tool integrations) that improve automation, incident troubleshooting, and developer productivity; set guidelines for responsible AI use in DevOps workflows.
• Support production reliability - participate in production readiness reviews, incident response, root-cause analysis, and disaster recovery planning.
• Mentor and multiply - provide technical direction to engineers, promote knowledge sharing, and maintain architecture documentation and operational runbooks.

Required Qualifications
• 10+ years in software engineering, DevOps, platform engineering, or infrastructure engineering, including leading large-scale cloud initiatives.
• Proven track record architecting complex, highly available, secure, cost-effective cloud platforms Google Cloud Platform strongly preferred.
• Extensive hands-on Terraform and Ansible experience, including reusable modules, testing, and lifecycle management at scale.
• Strong CI/CD experience (GitHub Actions, Jenkins) covering automated testing, release, and deployment workflows.
• Solid scripting ability in Python, Bash, PowerShell, or similar.
• Working knowledge of networking, IAM, cloud security/hardening, and compliance; experience with Docker and infrastructure testing (e.g., Terratest, policy-as-code).
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional initiatives and influence technical decisions without formal authority.
• Experience with production support: incident response, root-cause analysis, disaster recovery, business continuity.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications
• Experience developing or integrating MCP servers, agent-driven tooling, or AI-assisted SDLC practices.
• Certifications in Terraform and/or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in computer science, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent practical experience.

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