Principal Engineer Software (Benefits Solutions)

Paylocity is an award-winning provider of cloud-based HR and payroll software solutions, offering the most complete platform for the modern workforce. The company has become one of the fastest-growing HCM software providers worldwide by offering an intuitive, easy-to-use product suite that helps businesses automate and streamline HR and payroll processes, attract and retain talent, and build a strong workplace culture.

While traditional HR and payroll providers automate basic HR processes such as payroll and benefits administration, Paylocity goes further by developing tools that HR and businesses need to compete for talent and deliver against the expectations of the modern workforce.

We give our employees what they need to succeed, including great benefits and perks! We offer medical, dental, vision, life, disability, and a 401(k) match, as well as perks that support you, your family, and your finances. And if it’s career development you desire, we provide that, too! At Paylocity, people matter most and have always been at the heart of our business.

Help Paylocity enhance communication and enable employees to connect, collaborate, and create from anywhere with a position in Product & Technology!

Want to develop the strategies and principles needed to deliver compelling software? Join our team and help us enhance our all-in-one software platform, elevate our one-of-a-kind technology, and improve the employee experience.

Take your career to the next level at one of G2's Top 100 Software Companies. Explore our Product & Technology positions to see where you fit!

Principal Engineer Software

Position Overview  

The Benefits team plays a mission-critical role at Paylocity, enabling our clients to manage vital aspects of the employee lifecycle, including Benefits Administration and Third-Party Administration (e.g., Spending Accounts). As we continue to scale, the complexity and importance of our systems increase, requiring strategic technical leadership.

As a Principal Software Engineer in Benefits, you will be a hands-on, high-impact technical leader shaping the future of our products through system design, technical guidance, and software craftsmanship. As one of the most senior engineers in the organization, you will partner closely with Engineering Managers, Software Engineers & Software Test Engineers, Product Managers, and our Product & Tech Community at large to solve complex technical challenges, influence architectural strategy, and drive excellence in execution across multiple teams.

Who you are  

• An experienced engineer with deep technical knowledge across the software stack, from data stores to APIs to the front end, and a strong bias for building scalable, well-architected solutions.
• An advocate for Domain-Driven Design and have applied it in modern distributed systems.
• An excellent communicator who can explain technical decisions to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Comfortable with ambiguity and capable of breaking down high-level business needs into technical execution plans.
• Passionate about software craftsmanship and continuous improvement, including mentoring engineers, refactoring legacy code, and leveling up engineering culture.
• Continuously learning and keeping up with new technologies, tools, and practices, and understanding when and how to adopt them.
• Collaborative, with a natural ability to influence across teams and disciplines without formal authority.
• Obsessed with delivering great customer experiences and driven by outcomes over output.

Responsibilities

• Architect and Influence: Lead the technical architecture and design for domain-critical systems and services, with a strong focus on scalability, performance, reliability, and cost optimization.
• Decompose Complex Systems: Identify monolith boundaries and help break them into scalable, cloud-native services aligned with domain boundaries.
• Lead Cross-Functional Initiatives: Drive key technical initiatives that span across teams and domains. Lead design reviews, architecture sessions, and working groups to align broader technical direction.
• Code  with Purpose: Set the standard for engineering quality through direct  contribution to codebases, paired programming, PR reviews, and technical  guidance.
• Technical Authority: Serve as the technical subject matter expert in the Benefits domain, influencing direction, setting guardrails, and owning the system’s health.
• Mentorship & Coaching: Provide mentoring and technical coaching to senior and mid-level engineers. Actively participate in career development conversations and growth planning.
• Promote Engineering Excellence: Champion clean architecture, testability, observability, and automation in our development practices.
• Advance Platform Modernization: Play a key role in the strategic migration of legacy systems to cloud-first, event-driven, domain-aligned solutions.
• Partner Across the Org: Collaborate with Engineering Managers, Architects, UX, and Product Managers to align business goals with engineering execution.
• Advocate for Dev Experience: Identify friction in tooling, deployment, and local development; drive improvements in the broader developer experience.

Required Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Math or related discipline and/or equivalent experience
• 10+  years of Software Engineering experience, with a proven track record in leading large-scale delivery
• Expert-level proficiency in .NET in a distributed systems environment
• Expert-level proficiency with C# and the .NET platform, including experience building and scaling distributed systems in a production environment
• Deep experience with MS SQL Server including optimization and debugging of  high-performance queries
• Experience designing and building cloud-native architectures, including serverless components, container orchestration, and infrastructure as code
• Strong command of Domain Driven Design principles and application in complex business systems
• Proven experience with REST APIs and event-driven architectures (Kafka, RabbitMQ,      etc.)
• Experience leading large-scale modernization efforts and decomposing monoliths into microservices or modular architectures
• Demonstrated ability to make architecture-level decisions and balance trade-offs across performance, scalability, and team agility
• Comfortable working across the SDLC, from ideation and whiteboard to production deployment
• Hands-on experience with Application Performance Monitoring tools (e.g., New Relic, Datadog, AppDynamics) and using telemetry data to inform performance optimization and system health

Preferred Experience

• Proven expertise with AWS (preferred), Azure, or GCP
• Hands-on experience with AWS cloud services (Lambda, ECS, EKS, CloudFormation, etc.)
• Proven expertise with MongoDB, DynamoDB, or a NoSQL database alternative
• Experience working with PostgreSQL in high-throughput, transactional systems
• Exposure  to distributed systems design, eventual consistency, and resiliency patterns (circuit breakers, retries, etc.)
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, and dev tooling best practices

Physical requirements:

• Ability to sit for extended periods: The role requires sitting at a desk or workstation for long periods, typically 7-8 hours a day.
• Use of computer and phone systems: The employee must be able to operate a computer, use phone systems, and type. This includes using multiple software programs and inquiries simultaneously.

Paylocity is an equal-opportunity employer. Paylocity is committed to the full inclusion of all individuals. We recruit, train, compensate, and promote regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, veteran status, and other protected status as required by applicable law. At Paylocity, we believe diversity makes us better.

We embrace and encourage our employees’ differences in age, culture, ethnicity, family or marital status, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, physical and mental ability, political affiliation, race, religion or spiritual belief, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, veteran status, and other characteristics that make our employees unique. We actively cultivate these differences through our employee resource groups (ERGs), employee experiences, perspectives, talents, and approaches to drive innovation in the software and services we provide our customers.

We comply with federal and state disability laws and make reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities. To request reasonable accommodation in the job application or interview process, please contact accessibility@paylocity.com. This email address is exclusively designated for such requests, aligning with federal and state disability laws. Please do not send resumes to this email address, as they will be removed.

The pay range for this position is $117,800 - $218,800 /yr; however, base pay offered may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. This position is eligible for an annual bonus and restricted stock unit grant based on individual performance in addition to a full range of benefits outlined here Benefits Link. This information is provided per the relevant state and local pay transparency laws for the location in which this position will be performed. Base pay information is based on market location. Applicants should apply via www.paylocity.com/careers.

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