Principal Product Manager

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
The Principal Product Manager at UKG is a senior-level individual contributor responsible for shaping strategy and driving execution on the company’s most complex, high-impact product initiatives. This role is designed for experienced product leaders who deliver outsized impact through vision, influence, and technical depth rather than people management.
Principal PMs operate across product boundaries, work on ambiguous and long-horizon problems, and are trusted partners to engineering, design, architecture, and executive leadership. They set direction, unblock progress, and raise the bar for product thinking across the organization.
What You’ll Do
Own Strategy for Complex Problem Spaces
Define and evolve long-term product vision, strategy, and success metrics for critical UKG initiatives that span products, teams, or platforms
Tackle ambiguous, high-risk, or under-defined problem areas where alignment, clarity, and sequencing are the primary challenges
Translate company strategy into durable product bets and roadmaps with clear tradeoffs and rationale
Lead Through Influence (Not Authority)
Drive alignment across multiple product, engineering, UX, data, and business teams without direct reporting lines
Serve as a trusted thought partner to Directors, PMs, and VPs by framing problems clearly and proposing grounded, data-informed paths forward
Raise the quality of product decision-making through rigorous thinking, storytelling, and stakeholder management
Be Deeply Customer-Centric
Represent customer and end-user needs at a systems level, identifying root causes across workflows, products, and experiences
Balance immediate customer pain with long-term platform health and scalability
Use qualitative insight and quantitative data to guide prioritization and validate outcomes
Partner Closely with Engineering & Architecture
Collaborate deeply with engineering and architecture on solution design, sequencing, and technical tradeoffs
Understand and account for platform constraints, legacy considerations, and long-term extensibility
Anticipate technical and delivery risks early and work proactively to mitigate them
Set the Bar for Product Craft
Model best-in-class product practices: clear problem statements, strong narratives, measurable outcomes, and disciplined execution
Mentor other PMs informally through example, feedback, and collaboration (without formal people management)
Contribute to evolving UKG’s product standards, frameworks, and ways of working
What Success Looks Like
UKG makes clearer, faster, and more confident decisions in complex product areas because you’re involved
Cross-functional teams feel aligned and unblocked on initiatives that previously stalled or fragmented
Leadership trusts your recommendations on high-stakes tradeoffs and long-term direction
Products ship that are cohesive, scalable, and meaningfully improve customer and worker outcomes
Required Qualifications
10+ years of product management experience in complex SaaS, platform, or enterprise environments
Proven success driving large, cross-functional initiatives without direct authority
Expected Traits
Strong strategic thinking paired with pragmatic execution
High product judgment: ability to simplify complexity, prioritize effectively, and make tradeoffs explicit
Deep collaboration skills with engineering, UX, and technical partners
Excellent written and verbal communication, especially with senior stakeholders
Preferred
Experience in workforce management, payroll, HCM, or adjacent enterprise domains
Strong technical fluency (APIs, platforms, data flows, architecture concepts)
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 $163,900.00 to $180,000.00 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