Senior Software Engineer - Distributed Systems

Workday, Inc.; Dublin; Hybrid; EUR 96,000 - 144,000; Full time

Job summary

Workday, Inc. is seeking an experienced infrastructure engineer to design, build, and operate observability infrastructure for metrics ingestion and alerting across our global production environments.

You will work on distributed systems at scale, collecting, processing, and acting on operational data with a focus on reliability, performance, and simplicity. You’ll contribute to agentic engineering, build tools and workflows that help engineers and AI agents operate the platform more

Qualifications

• 6+ years of professional software engineering in production-grade systems.
• 4+ years designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems on public or private clouds.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems fundamentals, including concurrency, fault tolerance, high availability, and failure-mode analysis.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and debug distributed systems across cloud-native production environments.
• Develop platform services for metrics ingestion, processing, and alerting at scale.
• Shape how AI agents interact with observability infrastructure through tooling, APIs, and operational workflows.
• Collaborate across teams to deliver infrastructure that is resilient, observable, and easy to operate.

Skills

Distributed systems

Go

Python

Kubernetes

HTTP/gRPC APIs

Collaboration & Leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering

Tools

Prometheus

Terraform

Helm

Jsonnet

GitOps

Job description

Your work days are brighter here. We’re obsessed with making hard work pay off, for our people, our customers, and the world around us. As a Fortune 500 company and a leading AI platform for managing people, money, and agents, we’re shaping the future of work so teams can reach their potential and focus on what matters most. The minute you join, you’ll feel it. Not just in the products we build, but in how we show up for each other. Our culture is rooted in integrity, empathy, and shared enthusiasm. We’re in this together, tackling big challenges with bold ideas and genuine care. We look for curious minds and courageous collaborators who bring sun-drenched optimism and drive. Whether you're building smarter solutions, supporting customers, or creating a space where everyone belongs, you’ll do meaningful work with Workmates who’ve got your back. In return, we’ll give you the trust to take risks, the tools to grow, the skills to develop and the support of a company invested in you for the long haul. So, if you want to inspire a brighter work day for everyone, including yourself, you’ve found a match in Workday, and we hope to be a match for you too.

About the Team

We are an infrastructure engineering team within Workday's observability organisation. Engineering teams worldwide rely on our platform to monitor and operate their production systems.

What we own

Metrics ingestion and alerting infrastructure, from the pipelines that collect and process metrics to the platform services that detect issues and deliver notifications.

How we build

Distributed systems at scale across Workday's global production environments, with a focus on reliability and long-term operability.

Agentic engineering

We build tooling and agent-facing interfaces that help engineers and AI agents understand and operate the platform, and we use them in our own day-to-day work.

How we work

Close collaboration with partner teams across engineering and site reliability, with engineers taking end-to-end ownership of the problems they solve.

About the Role

We build and operate observability infrastructure for metrics ingestion and alerting across Workday's global production environments. You will work on distributed systems at scale, collecting, processing, and acting on operational data, with a focus on reliability, performance, and simplicity. You will also contribute to agentic engineering, building tools and workflows that help engineers and AI agents operate the platform more effectively.

• Design, build, and debug distributed systems across cloud-native production environments
• Develop platform services for metrics ingestion, processing, and alerting at scale
• Shape how AI agents interact with observability infrastructure through tooling, APIs, and operational workflows
• Collaborate across teams to deliver infrastructure that is resilient, observable, and easy to operate

About You

Basic Qualification

• 6+ years of professional software engineering experience with production-grade systems
• 4+ years designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems on public or private clouds
• Strong understanding of distributed systems fundamentals, including concurrency, fault tolerance, high availability, and failure-mode analysis
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience

Other Qualification

• Agentic Engineering: Interest or experience building MCP servers, agent-facing APIs, or tooling that helps engineers and AI systems operate complex platforms
• Metrics & Observability Platforms: Experience with Prometheus-style monitoring ecosystems, time-series metrics pipelines, or large-scale observability platforms in production
• Go & Python: Strong proficiency in Go for production services; experience with Python for tooling, automation, data processing, or ML workloads
• API & Architecture: Experience designing and implementing robust, scalable HTTP and gRPC APIs in multi-tenant environments
• Kubernetes & Infrastructure as Code: Experience deploying and operating services on Kubernetes using infrastructure-as-code and platform configuration workflows such as Helm, Jsonnet, Terraform, or GitOps-style deployment pipelines
• Quality & Testing: Strong testing discipline across unit, integration, and end-to-end tests for distributed systems
• Collaboration & Leadership: Demonstrated ability to own problems end-to-end, work closely with SRE and partner engineering teams, and mentor other engineers
• Technical Communication: Excellent written communication skills for architecture designs, operational runbooks, and technical documentation

Workday Pay Transparency Statement (For EU Locations Only)

Listed below is the base salary range applicable to this position. Workday pay ranges (and the precise pay offered to the successful candidate) are based on a number of objective criteria such as relevant experience and skills, and educational qualifications, level of responsibility, demands of the role, work location and business need. As a part of the total compensation package, this role may be eligible for the Workday Bonus Plan or a role-specific commission/bonus, as well as annual refresh stock grants awarded by Workday Inc. For more information regarding Workday’s comprehensive benefits, please click here.

Primary Location Base Pay Range: €96,000 EUR - €144,000 EUR Ireland

Our Approach to Flexible Work

With Flex Work, we’re combining the best of both worlds: in-person time and remote. Our approach enables our teams to deepen connections, maintain a strong community, and do their best work. We know that flexibility can take shape in many ways, so rather than a number of required days in-office each week, we simply spend at least half (50%) of our time each quarter in the office or in the field with our customers, prospects, and partners (depending on role). This means you'll have the freedom to create a flexible schedule that caters to your business, team, and personal needs, while being intentional to make the most of time spent together. Those in our remote "home office" roles also have the opportunity to come together in our offices for important moments that matter.

Pursuant to applicable Fair Chance law, Workday will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Workday is an Equal Opportunity Employer including individuals with disabilities and protected veterans.

At Workday, we are committed to providing an accessible and inclusive hiring experience where all candidates can fully demonstrate their skills.

If you require assistance or an accommodation at any point, please email [e-mail].

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If you require a reasonable accommodation, you may email [e-mail], as far in advance as possible.