Phd Architecture Jobs in Renton, WA (NOW HIRING)

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.
About the Role:
We are seeking a distinguished and customer-facing Fellow AI Engineer to define and lead UKG's enterprise-wide Agentic AI strategy across the full UKG Product Suite. This role extends beyond technical excellence-it requires a seasoned AI leader who partners closely with customers, sales leaders, product teams, and engineering experts to translate AI innovation into measurable business impact.
As a Technical Fellow, you will serve as the strategic and architectural authority for Agentic AI systems. You will shape how autonomous, goal-driven AI agents are designed, deployed, governed, and scaled across all the complete UKG product suite. This role demands a rare blend of deep technical mastery, enterprise architecture thinking, commercial awareness, and executive-level influence and communication.
You will operate at the intersection of customer outcomes, product innovation, and engineering excellence-ensuring UKG leads the market in responsible, scalable, and transformative Agentic AI solutions.
***UKG is unable to offer sponsorship for this position.***
Responsibilities:
Agentic AI Vision & Enterprise Strategy
Define and drive UKG's enterprise-wide Agentic AI strategy, establishing a cohesive architectural and execution framework for intelligent agents across the product portfolio and AI Platform. Translate emerging AI capabilities into a clear roadmap aligned with business priorities, customer value, and long-term platform evolution.
Customer & Field Partnership
Engage directly with strategic customers, sales teams, and solution consultants to:
• Shape AI-driven value propositions
• Identify high-impact agentic use cases
• Support executive conversations and AI strategy discussions
• Translate real-world customer challenges into scalable AI platform capabilities
Serve as a trusted AI advisor in customer engagements, industry forums, and strategic deal cycles.
Cross-Functional Leadership
Collaborate with Product, Engineering, Data Science, Security, and Legal teams to ensure alignment on architecture, governance, and responsible AI frameworks. Facilitate cross-functional consensus to operationalize AI agents in a manner that is secure, compliant, and ready for production deployment. Lead discussions on AI technology at the UKG Board level.
Technical Authority & Architecture
Provide hands-on architectural leadership in:
• Multi-agent systems and orchestration frameworks
• LLM-powered agents and tool-use architectures
• Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and knowledge systems
• Autonomous workflow execution and decision intelligence
• AI safety, evaluation, and guardrails
Establish standards for scalability, observability, cost optimization, and performance across cloud-native deployments.
Innovation & Applied Research
Stay at the forefront of Agentic AI advancements, continuously evaluating emerging models, frameworks, and research. Lead rapid experimentation and incubation of next-generation AI capabilities, bridging cutting-edge research with production-grade systems.
Commercial & Product Influence
Collaborate with GTM and Product leadership to ensure AI investments translate into differentiated product offerings. Influence pricing models, packaging strategies, and AI monetization approaches aligned with enterprise customer expectations.
Responsible AI & Governance
Define and champion governance frameworks for autonomous AI systems, including:
• Transparency and explainability
• Human-in-the-loop controls
• Privacy-preserving architectures
• Risk management and compliance
Ensure AI systems align with UKG's commitment to trust, fairness, and ethical innovation.
Mentorship & Organizational Impact
Elevate AI maturity across the organization by mentoring senior engineers and architects. Foster a culture of pragmatic innovation-balancing bold experimentation with disciplined execution.
Industry Representation
Represent UKG as a thought leader in Agentic AI through publications, keynote speaking, customer roundtables, and industry collaborations.
Qualifications:
• Educational Background: PhD in Computer Science, AI, Machine Learning, or a related field, or equivalent industry experience.
• Experience: 15+ 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.
• Track record of influencing cross-functional stakeholders, including customer-facing teams
• 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.
• Experience partnering with sales and customers to shape AI roadmaps
• 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.
• Executive presence with strong communication and storytelling skills
• 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.
Equal Opportunity Employer
UKG is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, disability, religion, sex, age, national origin, veteran status, genetic information, and other legally protected categories.
View The EEO Know Your Rights poster
UKG participates in E-Verify. View the E-Verify posters here.
It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.
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 UKGCareers@ukg.com.
The pay range for this position is $233,300.00 to $385,000.00 USD. 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