OPT Software Developer Jobs
Software Developer roles are among the most OPT-friendly positions in the U.S. job market, with strong demand from employers who routinely sponsor H-1B visas after OPT ends. STEM OPT extension eligibility applies to most CS, engineering, and related degrees, giving you up to 36 months of authorized work.
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SOFTW018817
Employment Type
Regular
Work Style
hybrid
Location
Atlanta,GA,United States, Lowell,MA,United States
Travel
Up to 25%
Role
Software Engineer III - Cloud Platform
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:
UKG is looking for a Senior Software Engineer III – Eng to build and maintain our public/private cloud’s PaaS layer (Platform as a Service). This is a specialized team that abstracts the complexities of Infrastructure, Networking, and Security requirements to ensure they are consumed in standardized ways for supporting Applications. These services are built in Linux leveraging various technologies including Go, Ansible, K8s, GKE, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Openstack, to name a few. This position will partner with our Agile development teams to assure smooth integration and deployment of UKG software across the entire cloud infrastructure.
This work is in the Engineering Acceleration group supporting internal product teams in their deployments. The right software engineer background and experience will be with cloud technologies and a desire to master them.
About the Role
- Software Development: Write clean, maintainable, and efficient code or various software applications and systems.
- Dev Ops Model: Understanding of working in a DevOps Model. Taking ownership from working with product management on requirements to design, develop, test, deploy and maintain the software in production.
- Develop and maintain infrastructure as code (IaC) using tools.
- Technical Leadership: Contribute to the design, development, and deployment of complex software applications and systems, ensuring they meet high standards of quality and performance.
- Write clean, maintainable, and efficient code and infrastructure scripts using Bash, Python, PowerShell, or similar languages.
- Architectural Design: Participate in design reviews with peers and stakeholders and in the architectural design of new features and systems, ensuring scalability, reliability, and maintainability.
- Code Review: Diligent about reviewing code developed by other developers, provide feedback and maintain a high bar of technical excellence to ensure code is adhering to industry standard best practices like coding guidelines, elegant, efficient and maintainable code, with observability built from ground up, unit tests etc.
- Testing: Build testable software, define tests, participate in the testing process, automate tests using, tools (e.g., Junit, Selenium) and Design Patterns leveraging the test automation pyramid as the guide.
- Service Health and Quality: Maintain Total Lifecycle Management of all services provided.
- Utilize service health indicators and telemetry for action providing recommendations to optimize performance. Conduct thorough root cause analysis and drive the implementation of measures to prevent future recurrences.
- Documentation: Properly document new features, enhancements or fixes to the product, contributing to training materials.
About You:
Minimum Qualifications:
- 4+ years of software engineering experience
- 4 years of experience with at least one of the following programming languages: Java, Golang, Ruby, Python, C++
- 1 year+ of GitOps/DevOps experience or, building Infrastructure as Code pipelines or processes to support large teams
- Experience working with Kubernetes, Docker, and public cloud deployment platforms
- Experience designing and administering CI/CD pipelines
- Proven track record of leading and delivering large-scale, complex software projects.
- Proficiency with cloud technologies like Azure, AWS, GCP, and version control systems like GitHub.
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field or equivalent practical experience
Preferred Qualifications:
- Master’s degree or PhD in Computer Science or a related technical field.
- Experience and deep understanding GitHub Actions, Argo CD, or similar GitOps and CI/CD platforms for Kubernetes application deployment, release orchestration, traffic routing, and lifecycle management or a readiness and deep interest to learn and master.
- Extensive experience with GitOps tooling for example GitHub Actions, leveraging Terraform and Ansible to create CI/CD pipeline automation frameworks and container-based deployments.
- Extensive experience with software architecture and design patterns, including the ability to design and implement scalable, reliable systems in a DevOps model.
- Proficiency in building telemetry or observability as part of the development process.
- Strong understanding in DNS architecture and operations, including traffic management, split-horizon DNS, failover strategies, and performance optimization in large-scale distributed systems or a readiness and deep interest to learn and master.
- Proven experience designing and operating service-to-service routing, including L7 traffic shaping, canary deployments, blue/green releases, and zero-downtime migration strategies or a readiness and deep interest to learn and master.
- Experience with API gateway and edge routing technologies (e.g., NGINX, Envoy, Kong, or cloud-native equivalents), including authentication, rate limiting, and policy enforcement or a readiness and deep interest to learn and master.
- Hands-on experience with TLS/mTLS, certificate lifecycle management, and secure service-to-service communication in a Kubernetes or microservices environment or a readiness and deep interest to learn and master.
- Deep understanding of Kubernetes operators, networking primitives, including Services, Ingress, Gateway API, and service mesh architectures (e.g., Istio, Linkerd), with hands-on experience operating them at scale or a readiness and deep interest to learn and master.
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.
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.
UKG participates in E-Verify.
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.
Compensation
The pay range for this position is $102,300 to $147,050. 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
NOTICE ON HIRING SCAMS
UKG will never ask you for a copy of your driver’s license, social security card, or passport during a job interview.
ABOUT OUR JOB DESCRIPTIONS
All job descriptions are written to accurately reflect the open job and include general work responsibilities. They do not present a comprehensive, detailed inventory of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications required for the job. Management reserves the right to revise the job or require that other or different tasks be performed if or when circumstances change.
Job ID
SOFTW018817
Employment Type
Regular
Work Style
hybrid
Location
Atlanta,GA,United States, Lowell,MA,United States
Travel
Up to 25%
Role
Software Engineer III - Cloud Platform
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:
UKG is looking for a Senior Software Engineer III – Eng to build and maintain our public/private cloud’s PaaS layer (Platform as a Service). This is a specialized team that abstracts the complexities of Infrastructure, Networking, and Security requirements to ensure they are consumed in standardized ways for supporting Applications. These services are built in Linux leveraging various technologies including Go, Ansible, K8s, GKE, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Openstack, to name a few. This position will partner with our Agile development teams to assure smooth integration and deployment of UKG software across the entire cloud infrastructure.
This work is in the Engineering Acceleration group supporting internal product teams in their deployments. The right software engineer background and experience will be with cloud technologies and a desire to master them.
About the Role
- Software Development: Write clean, maintainable, and efficient code or various software applications and systems.
- Dev Ops Model: Understanding of working in a DevOps Model. Taking ownership from working with product management on requirements to design, develop, test, deploy and maintain the software in production.
- Develop and maintain infrastructure as code (IaC) using tools.
- Technical Leadership: Contribute to the design, development, and deployment of complex software applications and systems, ensuring they meet high standards of quality and performance.
- Write clean, maintainable, and efficient code and infrastructure scripts using Bash, Python, PowerShell, or similar languages.
- Architectural Design: Participate in design reviews with peers and stakeholders and in the architectural design of new features and systems, ensuring scalability, reliability, and maintainability.
- Code Review: Diligent about reviewing code developed by other developers, provide feedback and maintain a high bar of technical excellence to ensure code is adhering to industry standard best practices like coding guidelines, elegant, efficient and maintainable code, with observability built from ground up, unit tests etc.
- Testing: Build testable software, define tests, participate in the testing process, automate tests using, tools (e.g., Junit, Selenium) and Design Patterns leveraging the test automation pyramid as the guide.
- Service Health and Quality: Maintain Total Lifecycle Management of all services provided.
- Utilize service health indicators and telemetry for action providing recommendations to optimize performance. Conduct thorough root cause analysis and drive the implementation of measures to prevent future recurrences.
- Documentation: Properly document new features, enhancements or fixes to the product, contributing to training materials.
About You:
Minimum Qualifications:
- 4+ years of software engineering experience
- 4 years of experience with at least one of the following programming languages: Java, Golang, Ruby, Python, C++
- 1 year+ of GitOps/DevOps experience or, building Infrastructure as Code pipelines or processes to support large teams
- Experience working with Kubernetes, Docker, and public cloud deployment platforms
- Experience designing and administering CI/CD pipelines
- Proven track record of leading and delivering large-scale, complex software projects.
- Proficiency with cloud technologies like Azure, AWS, GCP, and version control systems like GitHub.
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field or equivalent practical experience
Preferred Qualifications:
- Master’s degree or PhD in Computer Science or a related technical field.
- Experience and deep understanding GitHub Actions, Argo CD, or similar GitOps and CI/CD platforms for Kubernetes application deployment, release orchestration, traffic routing, and lifecycle management or a readiness and deep interest to learn and master.
- Extensive experience with GitOps tooling for example GitHub Actions, leveraging Terraform and Ansible to create CI/CD pipeline automation frameworks and container-based deployments.
- Extensive experience with software architecture and design patterns, including the ability to design and implement scalable, reliable systems in a DevOps model.
- Proficiency in building telemetry or observability as part of the development process.
- Strong understanding in DNS architecture and operations, including traffic management, split-horizon DNS, failover strategies, and performance optimization in large-scale distributed systems or a readiness and deep interest to learn and master.
- Proven experience designing and operating service-to-service routing, including L7 traffic shaping, canary deployments, blue/green releases, and zero-downtime migration strategies or a readiness and deep interest to learn and master.
- Experience with API gateway and edge routing technologies (e.g., NGINX, Envoy, Kong, or cloud-native equivalents), including authentication, rate limiting, and policy enforcement or a readiness and deep interest to learn and master.
- Hands-on experience with TLS/mTLS, certificate lifecycle management, and secure service-to-service communication in a Kubernetes or microservices environment or a readiness and deep interest to learn and master.
- Deep understanding of Kubernetes operators, networking primitives, including Services, Ingress, Gateway API, and service mesh architectures (e.g., Istio, Linkerd), with hands-on experience operating them at scale or a readiness and deep interest to learn and master.
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.
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.
UKG participates in E-Verify.
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.
Compensation
The pay range for this position is $102,300 to $147,050. 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
NOTICE ON HIRING SCAMS
UKG will never ask you for a copy of your driver’s license, social security card, or passport during a job interview.
ABOUT OUR JOB DESCRIPTIONS
All job descriptions are written to accurately reflect the open job and include general work responsibilities. They do not present a comprehensive, detailed inventory of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications required for the job. Management reserves the right to revise the job or require that other or different tasks be performed if or when circumstances change.
See all 2,408+ OPT Software Developer Jobs
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new OPT Software Developer Jobs.
Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding OPT Sponsorship as a Software Developer
Filter by STEM OPT compatibility first
Confirm your degree CIP code qualifies for the 24-month STEM extension before applying. Most computer science, software engineering, and information systems degrees do, but verify with your DSO before accepting any offer.
Target employers with H-1B filing history
Companies that have filed H-1B petitions for software roles in prior years are far more likely to sponsor you after OPT. Search OFLC disclosure data to verify an employer's track record before investing time in their process.
Address OPT proactively in your application
State your authorization clearly on your resume or cover letter. Noting that you have 36 months of STEM OPT available removes ambiguity and signals you understand the timeline, which reduces perceived risk for hiring managers.
Prioritize companies with existing immigration infrastructure
Mid-size to large tech companies typically have in-house or retained immigration counsel, making sponsorship administratively straightforward. Startups without prior visa experience often decline not from unwillingness but from unfamiliarity.
Apply before your OPT EAD is issued if possible
Starting your job search during your final semester gives you maximum runway. Employers hiring software developers often have 4- to 8-week interview pipelines, so early applications reduce the risk of gaps in work authorization.
Quantify your technical contributions in applications
Hiring managers evaluating OPT candidates weigh sponsorship costs against clear engineering value. Concrete impact metrics, such as performance improvements or systems you shipped, make the business case for sponsorship significantly more compelling.
Software Developer OPT: Frequently Asked Questions
Can I work as a Software Developer on OPT without an EAD in hand?
No. You cannot begin working until your EAD card arrives and the start date printed on it has passed. USCIS processing currently runs 3 to 5 months for standard OPT applications, so file as early as your DSO permits, typically 90 days before your program end date, to avoid a gap between graduation and employment.
Does a software developer role qualify for the STEM OPT extension?
Most software developer roles qualify, provided your underlying degree is in a STEM-designated field such as computer science, software engineering, computer engineering, or information systems. The employer must also be E-Verify enrolled and agree to a formal training plan on Form I-983. Confirm your degree CIP code with your DSO before counting on the extension.
How do I find Software Developer jobs where employers are open to OPT sponsorship?
Migrate Mate is built specifically for this. Every listing on Migrate Mate is screened for visa sponsorship willingness, so you're not guessing which employers will consider OPT students. Filtering by role and authorization type saves significant time compared to applying broadly and discovering sponsorship policies late in the process.
What happens to my OPT status if my software developer job is fully remote?
Remote work is permitted on OPT, but you must still report your employer and employment details to your DSO within 10 days of starting. Your physical location does not affect your authorization, but unreported changes can trigger a status violation. Update your SEVIS record promptly whenever your employer, address, or employment status changes.
Can I work as an independent contractor or freelance software developer on OPT?
Yes, self-employment and freelance work are allowed on OPT, but each client engagement must be directly related to your degree field, average at least 20 hours per week to meet the full-time requirement during post-completion OPT, and be properly reported to your DSO. The STEM OPT extension does not permit self-employment, so this path closes if you extend.