Workday Financial Manager

Thought Machine; Greater London; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Thought Machine is seeking a Finance Systems Engineering Manager to lead the Workday Financials stack, drive automation, and enhance reporting for the Finance function. The role sits at the intersection of accounting logic, systems architecture, and Generative AI.

You will partner with Finance, People, Engineering and Security to implement changes, streamline processes and scale data capabilities as the business grows globally.

Qualifications

• Experience with Workday Financials, incl. WD expenses module and integrations.
• Engineering background with ability to redesign processes and optimize systems.
• Collaborates across Finance, People, Engineering, Security and others.

Responsibilities

• System Ownership: act as primary Workday admin, optimise platform, adopt new features with AI.
• Manage change requests and tickets with related teams.
• Ensure management/statutory reporting aligns with latest accounting standards.

Skills

Workday Financials

Engineering excellence

Cross-functional collaboration

Systems implementation

Business process analysis

Automation

AI curiosity

Advanced Excel

Databases

Programming

Education

Part Qualified / Qualified Finance professional

Tools

Workday

Excel

Job description

Thought Machine's mission is bold – to properly and permanently rid the world's banks of legacy technology. To achieve this, we have developed the foundations of modern banking through core and payments technology which run natively in the cloud. What we are attempting is hard and means we need great people working together to build great technology.

We have grown rapidly in the past few years – growing our team to more than 550 individuals across offices in London, New York, Singapore, Sydney and our newly established Engineering Hub in Lisbon. We have raised more than £500m in funding and our investors include Molten Ventures, Eurazeo, Intesa Sanpaolo, Temasek, Nyca Partners, JPMorgan Chase Strategic Investments, Standard Chartered Ventures, and more.

We have created a culture that enables our team to produce the best work in the industry while ensuring we have fun along the way. We're regularly cited as having a fantastic workplace culture and have been recognised by Sifted magazine as having one of the highest Glassdoor ratings for a UK fintech company and the industry's most generous employee share package. Named one of the world's most innovative fintechs by Global Finance Magazine, we were also recognised by the Financial Times as one of Europe's fastest-growing companies for two consecutive years—and a UK Best Employer for 2026.

Thought Machine is looking for a talented Finance Systems Engineering Manager and will report into the Group Finance Director. The Manager will sit at the crossroads of accounting logic, systems architecture, and Generative AI. The business uses Workday Financials and needs someone experienced in usage of the system to continue with process improvements, maintain the system and support the Finance function. We are on a journey to eliminate manual processes, and this role will play a critical part in ensuring we have reliable data, automated processes and fast, meaningful reporting. The mission is to treat the entire Finance stack as a machine: designing automated data and ensuring the financial infrastructure scales seamlessly as Thought Machine continues to grow.

DUTIES

• System Ownership: Serve as the primary System Administrator for Workday Financials, driving end-to-end platform optimisation, focusing on exploiting AI, and driving new features/functionality adoption to improve operations.

• Ticket & Stakeholder Governance: Prioritise, manage incoming change requests and support tickets in collaboration with related teams.

• Reporting & Hierarchy: Ensure reporting for management, statutory aligned with latest accounting standards and structure in line with how the business is set up.

• Optimising Business Processes: Review all existing business processes and recommend new ways to do things, reducing complexity, automating manual workflows and driving improvements with AI lead change.

• Enablement & Best Practices: Produce clear technical playbooks, end-user documentation, training initiatives, actively participate in the Workday.

• Community to leverage best practices and influence product roadmaps.

• Integrations: Ensure current integrations are compliant and improved upon.

• Future Projects: new shares tool, integration for other banking partners, updating security user groups, consolidating payroll providers and new FP&A tool.

• Security & Compliance: Enforce strict segregation of duties processes, system audit trails, to ensure audit readiness, and compliant integrations and renewals.

• Application Management: Oversee the ongoing maintenance, vendor relationships, and SLA for all 3rd-party system integrators.

REQUIREMENTS

Essential

• Workday Financial knowledge and experience, including WD expenses module, integrations for Banks, FX and others.

• Engineering excellence, coding, processing understanding and redesigning.

• Someone who enjoys collaborating across various teams within Finance and the wider organisation including the People Team, Engineering, Security and others.

• Systems implementation, configuration, development and support.

• Business process analysis and a flexible approach with a willingness to constructively challenge existing practices.

• A passion for providing an excellent end-user experience and automation.

• AI-Curious: understand how to prompt LLMs, use APIs, and excited about deploying AI agents to replace repetitive human processes.

• Self-motivating and at home in a fast-paced and rapidly-changing environment with competing deadlines.

• Build strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders to deliver desired outcomes for the team and organisation.

• Advanced Excel, database and programming.

Desirable

• Accounting knowledge, maybe someone who is a Part Qualified or Qualified Finance professional.

• Experience in a Systems role in an SME enterprise.

• Worked within the software SaaS industry previously.

We actively hire candidates who demonstrate technical excellence in their field and welcome people of all ages and backgrounds, providing everyone with equal access to professional development. You are encouraged to apply even if your experience doesn't accurately match the job description. We also encourage applications from those with different abilities, including candidates with ADHD, autism, dyslexia or dyspraxia.