Base Career helps you apply smarter for this job.
Key skills for this role
AI Labs is Paylocity's team for rapid AI experimentation — we test and validate new AI-driven ideas quickly, with a bias toward hands-on building over long planning cycles. We're growing a new, early-career-focused engineering team based in the Rochester, NY area, and looking for a technical, hands-on manager to lead it from the ground up. You'll help shape both the team and its technical direction, working across real AI Labs projects from day one. This role reports to the Director for AI Labs.
You've led and mentored engineers before, ideally early-career talent specifically, and know how to balance hands-on technical guidance with giving people room to own real work.
A servant leader: you remove blockers and create opportunities for your team, and direct as needed.
A strong communicator who shifts naturally between technical depth with your team and business framing with executives and stakeholders.
Strong technical skills not tied to one stack, comfortable diving deep across a wide range of technologies and project types.
Familiarity with .NET/C#.
Hands-on experience designing, building, and operating cloud-based solutions in AWS, with a solid grasp of modern cloud architecture, scalability, security, and operational practice.
Real experience building applications that use AI technologies directly — integrating AI services, LLMs, or other intelligent features into actual products, not just reading about them.
Fluent in frontier AI tools as part of your own workflow (Claude, OpenAI, Copilot, or similar). You use them day to day, not just know they exist.
A strong enough grasp of what your team builds and why to pressure-test any technical tradeoff they make.
Genuinely passionate about exploring new ideas and tracking where AI is heading as you experiment with what you learn.
Comfortable with ambiguity, wearing whatever hat the moment calls for since this team’s work is very exploratory.
Skip the repetitive application forms
Install the Base Career Chrome Extension and autofill job applications across major job boards with your profile.
Trusted by over 500,000 job seekers on Base Career
More from this employer
, IND
Lake Mary, USA
, USA
, USA
Meridian, USA
Schaumburg, USA
Schaumburg, USA
Schaumburg, USA
Curious and growth-oriented, adaptable to change.
You enjoy the creative exploration with your team as much as the delivery. This role is as much about how your team learns as what it ships.
Based in the Rochester, NY area, working hybrid alongside your team in Pittsford — this is about building a tight, in-person culture for a founding early-career team, not an attendance mandate.
BS degree or higher in Computer Science, Information Technology, or equivalent experience
5+ years of software engineering experience, including 2+ years in a formal engineering management role
Hands-on experience building and maintaining applications with .NET and C#
Hands-on experience designing, developing, and operating cloud-based solutions in AWS
Experience building applications that integrate AI technologies (AI services, LLMs, or other intelligent features) into customer-facing or internal applications
Experience working in agile development environments, including driving process improvements
Proven experience leading, mentoring, and developing engineering teams
Strong collaboration skills across Product, Design, and Business functions
Cloud-based payroll and human capital management software provider.
Visit company websiteJobs and hiring trendsUSD 148800-212500 yearly / year
Full-time
Senior · 5+ years experience
Hybrid
Apply faster on company sites with our extension.