The Vice President of Software Engineering will serve as a pivotal leader within the UKG Product & Technology organization, reporting directly to the Engineering Leader responsible for UKG's HCM and Pay product suite. This highly visible executive role requires an accomplished engineering leader with deep expertise in building and scaling SaaS enterprise products.
The VP will shape the long-term platform vision for the product suite, drive SaaS-first engineering excellence, reliability and scalability, and enable faster innovation to deliver more customer value. This leader will inspire high-performing global teams, foster strong cross-functional partnerships, and engage directly with UKG's largest customers across a wide range of industries.
Responsibilities:
Strategic Leadership & Product Direction
• Define, influence, and execute the engineering strategy and product roadmap for the foundation portfolio in HCM and Pay product suite, ensuring alignment with UKG's broader business objectives.
• Champion a SaaS-first engineering mindset, emphasizing modern architectures, service ownership, scalability, security, and performance.
Engineering Excellence & Delivery
• Drive deep service ownership and operational maturity within engineering teams through modern SaaS practices, CI/CD, observability, and continuous improvement.
• Oversee the complete software development lifecycle-from product definition through continuous deployment and support-ensuring on-time delivery of high-quality, highly available solutions.
Innovation & Collaboration
• Partner closely with Product Management, Architecture, Customer Success, and other internal/external stakeholders to engineer forward-thinking features and capabilities.
• Engage with strategic customers across industries to gather insights, shape product direction, and drive continuous service and experience improvements.
People Leadership
• Lead, mentor, and scale high-performing engineering teams across multiple global locations, fostering a culture grounded in innovation, accountability, inclusion, and excellence.
• Attract, retain, and develop world-class technical talent, building teams that consistently deliver exceptional results.
Cross-Functional Partnership
• Build strong, collaborative relationships across Product Management, Engineering, Customer Success, and other key functions to ensure seamless delivery and ongoing customer satisfaction.
• Uphold and amplify UKG's culture and core values, inspiring trust, teamwork, and empowerment.
About You
• 15+ years of experience in enterprise-level software engineering, with 10+ years in senior leadership roles managing large, distributed engineering organizations.
• Demonstrated excellence leading engineering teams building and operating scalable SaaS products across diverse technologies, platforms, and architectures.
• Deep experience with Agile methodologies, modern DevOps practices, continuous delivery, and cloud-native engineering.
• Proven ability to inspire and lead high-performing teams, grounded in integrity, intellectual curiosity, and positive, energizing leadership.
• Exceptional communication skills with the ability to convey complex technical concepts to diverse audiences, including customers, executives, and cross-functional partners.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and engineering fundamentals, with hands-on understanding of complex technical environments.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field; advanced degree preferred.
The pay range for this position is $233,300 to $335,400. 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
