Dayforce is a global human capital management (HCM) company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, with operations across North America, Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA), and the Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) region.

Our award-winning Cloud HCM platform offers a unified solution database and continuous calculation engine, driving efficiency, productivity and compliance for the global workforce.

Our brand promise - Makes Work Life Better™ - Reflects our commitment to employees, customers, partners and communities globally.

Effective November 1, 2025 this position is not open to residents of Quebec; applicants must reside in a province or territory of Canada other than Quebec to be considered. Any roles available in Quebec will be posted separately.

About the opportunity

We are looking for a Principal Software Developer to join the team that is building search, AI Assistant, and AI agents capabilities into our Dayforce product. The Principal Software Developer has an opportunity to join a team of strong developers and work on a high visibility and high impact product - you will change the way millions of customers globally interact with our product on a day-to-day basis across 150+ countries. The ideal candidate has strong technical skills and a desire to keep up to date with advances in big data technologies.

Your impact will be evident through your effective participation in the entire lifecycle of our software including design, analysis, prototyping, development, testing and support of our products. You will work closely and collaborate with clients, prospects, implementation partners, and Dayforce personnel to envision and deliver the required functionality.

What you'll get to do

• Lead the design and implementation of highly scalable and available innovative solutions that include building a new search service, federating data, developing & consuming APIs, and implementing a search user interface
• Drive critical architecture design, advise and influence on strategic technical directions in continuous improvement of the search service
• Recommend new technologies to ensure solution scalability, maintainability and quality
• Automate release processes for all integrations & support deployed solutions
• Maintain integrations and tooling (e.g., bugfixes, enhancements, CI/CD updates)
• Scrupulously adhere to industry best practices
• Develop your technical skills through continuous learning
• Analyze, design, prototype, program, test and support– the complete software lifecycle in your hands!
• Participate in Product discussions to advise on and influence the Product Roadmap
• Drive the engineering processes and culture
• If you are a technology enthusiast, have passion for creating great software, want to see your creation utilized by millions of people all over the world, and possess one or more of the following qualifications, we want to talk to you!

What you'll get to do

• Experienced application developer with ability to work with the full stack and set development standards for other developers
• Hands-on experience with reviewing system architecture and database design of enterprise scale systems
• Collaborate with product managers, architects, and stakeholders to translate business requirements into technical solutions
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to software engineers across teams
• Evaluate and recommend tools, technologies, and processes to ensure high-quality software delivery.
• Strong coding skills for object-oriented programming with advanced programming constructs such as multi-threaded programming, dependency injection, advanced SQL, object relational mapping
• Disciplined self-starter, capable of working in close collaboration within an Agile development team
• Drive innovation and continuous improvement in engineering practices.
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex technical issues across the stack.
• Contribute to strategic planning and roadmap development.
• Excellent communication, documentation, and collaboration skills
• 5+ years as a Senior Developer or Team Lead, preferably in the Human Capital Management industry or financial sector
• 7+ years of experience with C#, Python, APIs, and microservices
• 5+ years of experience in building and leading development of complex SaaS and/or cloud-based applications
• 5+ years of experience in ELK (ElasticSearch, Logstash and Kibana) stack
• 5+ year experience with Azure cloud technologies
• Demonstrated understanding data structure, algorithms, design patterns
• History of leading the design of web services, microservices, or SOA

What would make you really stand out

• Experience integrating Kafka with other systems like databases, microservices, and stream processing tools (e.g. Kafka Streams, Streamiz.Kakfka.Net)
• Experience in monitoring and tuning Elasticsearch clusters for performance and reliability
• Experience with infrastructure design and deployment utilizing Azure CloudPaaS cloud offerings for the implementation of data pipelines (Power BI, Azure SQL, Function/Logic Apps, Key Vault, Storage Accounts, Virtual Machines, Azure Monitor, Log Analytics)
• Dev ops process automation skills utilizing ARM templates, Terraform, and Powershell
• Experience with Unit Testing Libraries/Frameworks such as Jasmine, Cypress
• Strong understanding of CICD pipeline working with software such as Azure, Git, GitHub
• Understanding of JavaScript build tools/dependency management libraries such as Gulp, WebPack, Babel, RequireJS, etc.

What’s in it for you

Dayforce is fueled by the diversity of our talented employees. We are an equal opportunity employer and consider and embrace ALL individuals and what makes them unique. We believe our employees should be happy and healthy, with peace of mind and a sense of fulfillment.

We encourage individuals to apply based on their passions.

Dayforce encourages personal and professional growth. We offer excellent time away from work programs, comprehensive wellness initiatives and recognition through competitive pay and benefits.

With a commitment to community impact, including volunteer days and our charity, Dayforce Cares we provide opportunities for you to thrive both in your career and personal life. Our focus is not just on your job but on supporting you to be the best version of yourself.

About the Salary Ranges

Please note that the salary range mentioned in this job description should serve simply as a guide. The final compensation offered may vary based on a variety of factors, including bonuses and/or incentives, or a candidate’s experience, skills, budget and location. Our company is committed to providing a fair, equitable, and competitive package that reflects the value an individual brings to the organization.

Proficiency in English is required for this position as this role will regularly interact with English-speaking stakeholders, co-workers, managers and/or clients across the world. Further, our back office support teams, including but not limited to Human Resources, are primarily English speaking. Employees need to be able to communicate with these departments in English to appropriately administer their business relationship. Due to the significant high volume of interactions with these English-speaking co-workers, managers, stakeholders and/or clients, which is inherent to this position, it is not possible to reorganize the company's activities to avoid this requirement.

Fraudulent Recruiting

Beware of fraudulent recruiting. Legitimate Dayforce contacts will use an @dayforce.com email address. We do not request money, checks, equipment orders, or sensitive personal data during the recruitment process. If you have been asked for any of the above, or believe you have been contacted by someone posing as a Dayforce employee, please refer to our fraudulent recruiting statement found here: https://www.dayforce.com/be-aware-of-recruiting-fraud