Principal API Architect, Product Engineering

Workday, Inc.; Dublin; Hybrid; EUR 104,000 - 156,000; Full time

Job summary

Workday, Inc. is seeking a Principal-level API Architect in Product Engineering to lead API strategy for agentic, product-centric and integration-heavy scenarios.

You will own the API architecture vision, set design standards, and partner with engineering and product leaders to implement scalable services and durable API contracts. The role requires deep hands-on OO modeling, design skills, and multi-tenant, high-throughput backend systems experience across REST, GraphQL, SOAP, and emerging

Qualifications

• 12+ years building large-scale backend systems and APIs.
• 7+ years in software engineering with OO modeling and design concepts.
• 5+ years designing API endpoints exposing product functionality at scale.
• Hands-on experience with Java, TypeScript or Python for web services and APIs.
• Experience with API governance, standards, documentation, and lifecycle management.
• Familiarity with data platforms and Data Cloud or similar data exposure patterns.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve the API architecture, standards, and review processes across Product Engineering.
• Shape API roadmaps with product and platform leaders and drive convergence on patterns.
• Translate product requirements into scalable backend services and API contracts.
• Establish and maintain API standards: OpenAPI, resource modeling, versioning, authentication, error handling, and deprecation.
• Lead cross-team API design reviews and mentor engineers on API design and distributed systems.

Skills

API architecture

Object-oriented modeling

Distributed systems

Java/TypeScript/Python

API governance

Cloud architectures

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Engineering

Tools

OpenAPI

REST/GraphQL/SOAP

Job description

Workday, Inc. is seeking a Principal-level API Architect in Product Engineering to lead API strategy for agentic, product-centric and integration-heavy scenarios.

You will own the API architecture vision, set design standards, and partner with engineering and product leaders to implement scalable services and durable API contracts. The role requires deep hands-on OO modeling, design skills, and multi-tenant, high-throughput backend systems experience across REST, GraphQL, SOAP, and emerging