Lead API Architect, Platform & Integrations

Worky; Pleasanton (CA); On-site; USD 173,000 - 310,000; Full time

Job summary

Workday is seeking a Principal API Architect in Product Engineering to lead API strategy for agent-centric and integration-heavy scenarios. You will own the API architecture vision, set design standards, and partner with leaders to realize them across teams.

The role emphasizes hands-on backend mastery, domain modeling, and production operations, with a focus on durable product contracts and scalable services across large systems.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience building large-scale backend systems and APIs.
• 7+ years in software engineering with OO design concepts.
• 5+ years designing API endpoints that expose product functionality at scale.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent experience.
• Experience leading API governance and cross-team standards.

Responsibilities

• Define API architecture, standards, and review processes for Product Engineering APIs.
• Shape API roadmaps with product leaders and prioritize API investments.
• Translate product requirements into scalable backend services and API contracts.
• Mentor engineers and influence cross-team API governance and patterns.
• Establish reference architectures for agent-ready and data-centric APIs.

Skills

API architecture

Backend systems design

Object-oriented modeling

Distributed systems

Leadership

API governance

Cloud architectures

Observability

AI-assisted code/tools knowledge

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Engineering

Tools

Cursor

Claude Code

GitHub Copilot

Job description

Workday is seeking a Principal API Architect in Product Engineering to lead API strategy for agent-centric and integration-heavy scenarios. You will own the API architecture vision, set design standards, and partner with leaders to realize them across teams.

The role emphasizes hands-on backend mastery, domain modeling, and production operations, with a focus on durable product contracts and scalable services across large systems.