Principal Engineer Software, Search & AI Assistant team

Location: Remote (Must be based anywhere in the Czech Republic)

About Paylocity 

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.

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!

About the Team

The Search & AI Assistant team is a growing engineering group based in the Czech Republic, responsible for building the company’s Search platform and integrating a conversational AI Assistant. As usage and scope increase, the team is expanding with a clear path toward splitting into two focused teams, offering engineers the chance to join early and help shape the future of these platforms.

The team collaborates closely with product and UX partners in the United States while remaining fully co-located in CZ. The technical stack includes containerized .NET services, ReactJS, AWS, OpenSearch, and Amazon Bedrock, supporting modern, scalable search and AI-driven experiences. 

Position Overview

This role provides technical leadership and strategic direction across our engineering organization. This role requires a unique combination of deep technical expertise, architectural vision, and leadership capabilities, with a focus on driving technical excellence and innovation across multiple systems and domains. 

Primary Responsibilities

The below represents the primary duties of the position, others may be assigned as needed. To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Core Responsibilities 

• Provide strategic technical direction across multiple shared systems and architectures 
• Evangelize and implement organization-wide technical strategies and best practices 
• Coordinate architectural decisions and contributions across multiple projects 
• Drive technical innovation while maintaining system reliability and scalability 
• Provide technical oversight and commentary on multiple projects beyond direct involvement 
• Navigate and resolve complex technical arguments through constructive dialogue 
• Handle ambiguous specifications through systematic analysis and collaboration 
• Maintain high-quality standards across all technical initiatives 
• Lead incident resolution and drive reliability improvements 
• Advocate for and maintain high-quality standards across the organization 
• Identify and address quality gaps in processes and systems 
• Drive adoption of best practices across teams and departments 

Growth & Technical Leadership  

• Coach and develop fellow technical leaders across the organization 
• Influence technical decisions across multiple domains and stakeholder groups 
• Drive cross-team alignment on quality engineering goals, KPIs, and continuous improvement initiatives. 
• Identify and resolve systemic issues through data analysis, retrospectives, and iterative improvements. 
• Maintain a calm, mature perspective in high-pressure situations 
• Foster a culture of constructive communication and technical excellence 
• Demonstrate company-level perspective on technical issues 
• Identify and prioritize high-impact technical initiatives 
• Understand and communicate cross-functional impacts of technical decisions 
• Drive technical innovation while considering business objectives 

Team Collaboration & Influence

• Foster a culture of innovation by promoting experimentation with new technologies, tools, and practices. 
• Partner with Product, Design, and Engineering leadership to align on feature expectations and quality benchmarks. 
• Lead technical initiatives across multiple engineering teams, driving accountability and shared success. 
• Play an active role in hiring, onboarding, and developing top engineering talent, contributing to a high-performing test engineering community. 

Education and Experience 

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field  
• Minimum 10 years of software engineering experience 
• Proven track record of leading significant technical initiatives  

Technical Skills:  

• 8+ years hands-on experience with application development 
• ReactJS for front-end (or experience with a comparable framework) 
• .NET C# for back-end (.NET experience is preferred, but not a strict requirement if the candidate can pick it up quickly) 
• track record of architecture design experience with: 
• Distributed systems handling large volumes of data 
• Or handling high volume of requests 
• Or with the necessity of high availability 
• Or with a complex API contracts design 
• Strong knowledge of both back-end and front-end technologies 
• Experience with AI technologies, conversational AI, AI agents 
• Experience developing highly interactive and responsive applications 
• Expert understanding of modern API standards and concepts 
• Experience with multiple database engines, SQL and NoSQL 
• Experience with unit testing, integration testing, and test automation 
• Ability to work effectively in an agile, cross-functional, English-speaking team 
• Commitment to the role and ability to take responsibility for assigned tasks 
• Passion for writing clean, maintainable, and efficient code 
• Strong software architecture design skills 
• Strong problem-solving skills and strong sense of curiosity 
• Adaptability to new technologies, dynamic requirements and environment 

Nice to Have: 

• Knowledge of search technologies such as OpenSearch 
• Familiarity with cloud services (AWS is preferred) 
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices 
• Adaptability to new technologies, dynamic requirements and environment 

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 Leave Benefits@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.

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