Principal Data Scientist

Job Description

Job Description

Description:

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.

We give our employees what they need to succeed, including great benefits and perks! We offer medical, dental, vision, life, disability, and a 401(k) match, as well as perks that support you, your family, and your finances. And if it’s career development you desire, we provide that, too! At Paylocity, people matter most and have always been at the heart of our business.

Help Paylocity enhance communication and enable employees to connect, collaborate, and create from anywhere with a position in Product & Technology!

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!

This is a fully remote position, allowing you to work from home or location of record within the U.S. with no in-office requirements. You must be available five days per week during designated work hours. The work arrangement for this role is subject to change based on business needs and individual performance. This may include adjustments to on-site requirements

Position Overview

Our data science team is responsible for developing AI and machine learning solutions to meet client needs in domains ranging from NLP and supervised learning to time series forecasting and anomaly detection. The team is focused on building high impact software solutions that deliver automation, insights, and assistance to millions of users every day. You can learn more about the type of work we do on our Paylocity AI page.

As a Principal Data Scientist, you will help Paylocity discover the information hidden in vast amounts of data, to help our customers make smarter human capital decisions that drive organizational success. Your primary focus will be to apply knowledge of statistics, machine learning, programming, data modeling, to recognize patterns, identify opportunities, pose business questions, and make valuable discoveries leading to prototype development and product improvement.

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.

• Select, build, and optimize machine learning models using advanced techniques such as time series analysis, regression, random forests, gradient boosting, and neural networks.
• Leverage cutting-edge big data technologies on cloud platforms, utilizing tools such as Databricks and Spark to deliver scalable solutions.
• Independently design and develop proof-of-concept projects, taking them from initial ideation through to full productization and delivery.
• Build agentic AI applications powered by large language models (LLMs) that enable autonomous decision-making and advanced automation capabilities.
• Create and maintain automated data and modeling pipelines, as well as custom performance tracking systems to ensure robust model deployment and monitoring.
• Work closely with full stack software engineers in an agile product development environment to deliver machine learning-powered software features.
• Collaborate with Product Managers, Enterprise Architects, Software Development Managers, and other organizational leaders to translate complex human capital management challenges into actionable data science projects.
• Conduct ad-hoc analyses and clearly present results to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Solve the most complex technical challenges across data science and engineering domains, ensuring technical health and quality of critical platforms.
• Drive organization-wide technical strategies and AI platform adoption, enabling rapid team onboarding to new systems and technologies.
• Lead the discovery, design, and implementation of organization-wide systems that balance technical capabilities with evolving business objectives and market needs.
• Proactively identify, communicate, and address emerging technical challenges, while maintaining system reliability, scalability, and fostering technical innovation.
• Effectively communicate technical vision, strategy, and insights to executive leadership and cross-functional teams.
• Participate in rigorous architecture planning and review processes, actively engaging throughout the product development lifecycle to ensure best practices and alignment with strategic objectives.

Education and Experience

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.

• Bachelor’s degree with 12 years of demonstrated data science success or similar experience; or, advanced degree (master’s or PhD) in data science, computer science, engineering, statistics, mathematics or other quantitative field, with 5 years of demonstrated data science success or similar experience.
• Experience in writing production grade machine learning models in Python.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, architecture, and scalability.
• Proven experience successfully executing organization-wide technical initiatives.
• Demonstrated experience with cloud infrastructure (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Demonstrated ability to leverage data science to drive business results.
• Skilled at translating business problems into data science problems and communicating the results to non-technical audiences.
• Able to work in a collaborative environment with a desire to share your ideas.
• Able to work independently and complete tasks with high quality, but unafraid to seek out suggestions from other team members.
• Self-motivated, adaptable, and highly detail oriented.

Preferred Skills:

• Professional or academic experience in HR, social science or psychology.
• Significant experience with cloud development and infrastructure-as-code (IAC) tools such as Pulumi, Terraform, AWS CDK.
• Be invested in staying current in data science by applying new technologies and practices.

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 View email address on ziprecruiter.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.

The pay range for this position is $163,300 - $235,300 /yr; however, base pay offered may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. This position is eligible for a restricted stock unit grant based on individual performance in addition to a full range of benefits outlined here. This information is provided per the relevant state and local pay transparency laws for the location in which this position will be performed. Base pay information is based on market location. Applicants should apply via

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