Sr Distributed Systems Engineer (DevOps)

Workday, Inc.; Auckland; Hybrid; NZD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Workday, Inc. is seeking a Senior Distributed Systems (DevOps) engineer in Auckland to design automated infrastructure for a scalable cloud platform.

You will implement CI/CD pipelines, optimize performance, and collaborate with the Platform Engineering team to deploy changes across AWS and GCP environments. You’ll work on highly available systems serving millions of users, with focus on security, observability, and self-healing through automation.

Qualifications

• BS in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 7+ years DevOps experience with distributed systems.
• 4+ years deploying microservices on Kubernetes and EC2.
• 4+ years building/managing EKS clusters and strong Kubernetes knowledge.

Responsibilities

• Design infrastructure and automated systems for a distributed architecture.
• Build and manage CI/CD pipelines to improve reliability and speed.
• Identify performance bottlenecks at infrastructure and application levels.
• Collaborate to meet high SLO/SLA requirements from customers.
• Maintain highly available web and backend systems serving millions of requests.
• Configure cloud services on AWS for new features with Devs.
• Secure infrastructure at cloud and app layers.
• Expand monitoring and alerting using internal and third-party tools.
• Establish infrastructure-as-code coverage for the platform.
• Develop tools to enhance Developer Productivity.
• Champion automation to reduce operational overhead.

Skills

DevOps

Kubernetes

AWS

PostgreSQL

Terraform

CI/CD

Python

Go

Docker

Monitoring

Education

BS in Computer Science

Tools

Istio/Linkerd

Redis

Kafka

Prometheus

Grafana

ELK/OpenSearch

GitHub Actions

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’ll 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

Our mission is to change the way business deals get done. In an industry plagued by inefficient and ineffective contract management systems, we provide a solution that accelerates, scales, and protects the business, enabling contract professionals to become their company’s superhero. We create innovative AI technology that makes contracts searchable and simplifies deal-making processes to supercharge business while helping to reduce costs and handle risk. We automate manual work, facilitate collaboration, and streamline operations so businesses can make better decisions. By reimagining legal documents, we take the stress out of contract management, empowering brilliant people to do their best work while fueling exponential growth.

About the Role

As a Senior Distributed Systems (DevOps) engineer in our team, you will have the opportunity to work on innovative cloud platform technologies (AWS, GCP) and implement tools to automate maintenance and support our engineering environments. You will also work closely with our Platform Engineering team to deploy changes to our engineering environments with a view to enabling verification of these changes.

What will you be doing?

• Design infrastructure and automated systems to support our distributed architecture
• Build and Manage CI/CD pipelines and constantly improve their reliability & speed, and reduce lead time for changes.
• Trace performance bottlenecks and identify optimizations and improvements at both the infrastructure and application level
• Collaborate with our engineering team to meet high SLO and SLA requirements from customers
• Maintain highly available web and backend systems that serve millions of users, and 1000’s of requests per second
• Closely collaborating with Developers to setup, configure and plan the necessary cloud services in support of new feature development on AWS
• Securing our infrastructure at both the cloud layer (IAM) and application layer (PKI)
• Building and expanding monitoring and alerting systems for both infrastructure and business operations, using internal tools & integrating into established 3rd party SaaS ones.
• Establishing comprehensive infrastructure-as-code coverage to support our entire platform
• Develop tools to enhance and support Developer Productivity
• Champion automation of manual processes and reducing operational overhead

Basic Qualifications

• 7+ years DevOps experience
• 5+ years database administration experience (Postgres, MariaDB, MSSQL)
• 4+ years experience orchestrating large scale distributed microservice deployments on Kubernetes and EC2.
• 4+ years experience building and managing EKS clusters and strong knowledge of the K8s ecosystem.

Other Qualifications

• Educational Background: BS in Computer Science (or a related field) or equivalent practical experience in large-scale systems.
• Cloud & Infrastructure: Deep expertise in the AWS ecosystem, including building and maintaining multi-region environments using Terraform.
• Automation & Development: Proven ability to build tooling and services in Python, TypeScript, Go, or Bash, with a focus on \"automation-first\" solutions for infrastructure scaling and self-healing.
• Containerization & Orchestration: Advanced experience managing Kubernetes and Docker, including implementing Service Mesh (Istio/Linkerd) for advanced traffic management, canary deployments, and system resilience.
• Data & Messaging Systems: Experience scaling and troubleshooting high-availability databases (PostgreSQL, DynamoDB, Redis) and message queuing clusters (Kafka, RabbitMQ, or SQS).
• Observability & CI/CD: Proficiency in building robust monitoring and logging stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/OpenSearch) and integrating security-centric pipelines into GitHub/GitLab CI.
• Systems Expert: Skilled at debugging, optimizing, and learning complex systems—from low-level networking to application-layer logic.
• Security-First Approach: A proactive focus on security within Infrastructure as Code (IaC), container builds, and microservice deployments.

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.

Accommodation Policy

Workday is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals during our application process, in order to perform one or more essential functions of their job, as well as regarding the use of AI tools for employment decision-making to any degree. Please see below for more details including how to request an accommodation as a qualified veteran, due to a disability or for religious reasons, or otherwise provided under applicable law. If you require a reasonable accommodation, you may email [e-mail], as far in advance as possible.

Equal Opportunity Statement

Workday is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. Individuals seeking employment at Workday are considered without regards to age, ancestry, color, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, mental or physical disability, national origin, protected family care or medical leave status, race, religion (including beliefs and practices or the absence thereof), sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. Further, pursuant to applicable local ordinances, Workday will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. We do not accept resumes from headhunters, placement agencies, or other suppliers that have not signed a formal agreement with us.

You may view the Workday's Pay Transparency Policy, and Know Your Rights Notice.

Workday will never ask candidates to pay a recruiting fee, or pay for consulting or coaching services, in order to apply for a job at Workday.

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Discrimination Policy

Workday prohibits taking adverse action against any candidate or employee for reporting a possible violation of this policy, requesting one or more work accommodations, exercising a privacy right, or cooperating in an investigation in accordance with applicable law. Any employee who retaliates against a candidate or employee for doing so may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment, to the fullest extent allowable under applicable law.