Job description

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 Team: We are seeking a Staff Platform Engineer to help design, automate, operate, and continuously improve critical database services across on-premises, private cloud, and public cloud environments. Our team manages and supports multiple database and messaging platforms, including MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Redis, RabbitMQ, and MySQL. The ideal candidate will bring strong DevOps, infrastructure automation, Kubernetes, Linux, and production-operations experience. Database expertise is highly valuable, but candidates do not need to be experts in every database technology. This role is ideal for an engineer who enjoys building reliable platforms, automating operational processes, troubleshooting complex production issues, and enabling development teams to consume database services through self-service workflows. About the Role: • Design, build, and operate infrastructure platforms that deliver critical database services at scale. • Develop and maintain infrastructure automation for provisioning, configuration, upgrades, migrations, and lifecycle management. • Manage database services across hybrid environments, including on-premises infrastructure, OpenStack, Kubernetes, and public cloud platforms. • Build and maintain Infrastructure as Code using Terraform and Terragrunt. • Develop and manage Kubernetes deployments, Helm charts, operators, and platform integrations. • Create and improve CI/CD and GitOps workflows using GitHub Actions and related automation tools. • Automate certificate management, secrets handling, service upgrades, backup processes, and operational tasks. • Support the full lifecycle of database services, from provisioning and configuration through maintenance, scaling, migration, and decommissioning. • Troubleshoot service failures, provisioning issues, replication problems, performance degradation, capacity constraints, and connectivity issues. • Respond to and resolve P1/P2 production incidents across database, messaging, Kubernetes, Linux, and infrastructure platforms. • Participate in an on-call rotation for mission-critical services. • Improve monitoring, alerting, logging, tracing, and operational visibility using tools such as Prometheus and Grafana. • Define and improve service reliability, availability, scalability, performance, and disaster-recovery capabilities. • Develop runbooks, operational procedures, architecture documentation, and incident knowledge articles. • Review designs and code, establish engineering standards, and provide technical leadership across the platform team. • Mentor engineers and share knowledge related to DevOps, infrastructure automation, Kubernetes, Linux, and production operations. • Collaborate with application, security, networking, cloud, and database teams to deliver reliable services that meet business needs. • Identify opportunities to reduce manual effort, improve developer self-service, and strengthen platform consistency across environments. About You: Basic Qualifications: • 7+ years of experience in software engineering, platform engineering, DevOps, SRE, or infrastructure engineering. • Strong hands-on experience supporting production environments and mission-critical services. • Deep knowledge of Linux administration, troubleshooting, system performance, networking fundamentals, and security practices. • Strong experience with Kubernetes and containerized workloads. • Production experience with OpenStack or comparable private-cloud and infrastructure platforms. • Strong experience developing and maintaining Infrastructure as Code using Terraform. • Experience with Terragrunt for managing reusable and multi-environment infrastructure configurations. • Experience building CI/CD automation using GitHub Actions or similar tools. • Experience with cloud-native technologies and hybrid infrastructure environments. • Programming or scripting experience in at least one language, such as Python, Bash, Go, or another modern programming language. • Experience automating operational processes, infrastructure workflows, or service-management tasks. • Experience with monitoring, logging, alerting, and observability tools such as Prometheus and Grafana. • Proven ability to troubleshoot complex issues across application, infrastructure, operating-system, and networking layers. • Experience participating in incident response, on-call support, root-cause analysis, and post-incident improvement activities. Preferred Qualifications: • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience. • Relevant certifications in cloud platforms, Kubernetes, Linux, Terraform, OpenStack, PostgreSQL, or MySQL. • Experience supporting hybrid-cloud or multi-environment infrastructure. • Experience with open-source cloud-native technologies and projects. • Familiarity with SRE principles, DevOps practices, and reliability engineering. • Experience with GitOps workflows and advanced CI/CD automation. • Knowledge of certificate-management systems such as cert-manager, ACME, and PKI. • Experience with database backup, recovery, replication, high availability, disaster recovery, or performance optimization. • Background managing database and messaging platforms such as MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Redis, RabbitMQ, or MySQL. • Experience with managed database services such as MongoDB Atlas, AWS RDS, or GCP Cloud SQL. • Experience with service migrations, database version upgrades, or platform modernization. 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 $129,500 to $186,100. 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 ukg.com

Requirements

Must-haves

We are seeking a Staff Platform Engineer to help design, automate, operate, and continuously improve critical database services across on-premises, private cloud, and public cloud environments.
Design, build, and operate infrastructure platforms that deliver critical database services at scale.
Develop and maintain infrastructure automation for provisioning, configuration, upgrades, migrations, and lifecycle management.
Manage database services across hybrid environments, including on-premises infrastructure, OpenStack, Kubernetes, and public cloud platforms.
Build and maintain Infrastructure as Code using Terraform and Terragrunt.
Develop and manage Kubernetes deployments, Helm charts, operators, and platform integrations.
Create and improve CI/CD and GitOps workflows using GitHub Actions and related automation tools.
Automate certificate management, secrets handling, service upgrades, backup processes, and operational tasks.
Support the full lifecycle of database services, from provisioning and configuration through maintenance, scaling, migration, and decommissioning.
Troubleshoot service failures, provisioning issues, replication problems, performance degradation, capacity constraints, and connectivity issues.
Respond to and resolve P1/P2 production incidents across database, messaging, Kubernetes, Linux, and infrastructure platforms.
Participate in an on-call rotation for mission-critical services.
Improve monitoring, alerting, logging, tracing, and operational visibility using tools such as Prometheus and Grafana.

Nice-to-haves

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
Relevant certifications in cloud platforms, Kubernetes, Linux, Terraform, OpenStack, PostgreSQL, or MySQL.
Experience supporting hybrid-cloud or multi-environment infrastructure.
Experience with open-source cloud-native technologies and projects.
Familiarity with SRE principles, DevOps practices, and reliability engineering.
Experience with GitOps workflows and advanced CI/CD automation.
Knowledge of certificate-management systems such as cert-manager, ACME, and PKI.
Experience with database backup, recovery, replication, high availability, disaster recovery, or performance optimization.
Background managing database and messaging platforms such as MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Redis, RabbitMQ, or MySQL.
Experience with managed database services such as MongoDB Atlas, AWS RDS, or GCP Cloud SQL.
Experience with service migrations, database version upgrades, or platform modernization.

Application prep

Use the role’s language and application details while tailoring your materials.

Keywords to mirror

kubernetesci/cdpythongoawsgcpsqlai

Platform: eightfold
Effort: medium

Benefits

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Vision