Manager, People Systems (Workday) (opens in a new tab)

Justworks, Inc.; New York (NY); On-site; USD 147,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Justworks, Inc. is seeking a Manager, People Systems (Workday) to lead and scale our Workday-based People tech ecosystem.

You will own architecture, governance, and integrations while expanding with AI-enabled workflows that improve efficiency and the employee experience. You will partner with People leadership, engineering, and finance to deliver reliable, scalable solutions across Core HCM, payroll, benefits, and talent optimization, while driving data-driven insights and continuous

Qualifications

• 8+ years of progressive hands-on experience in People Systems.
• Experience leading teams and aligning stakeholders.
• Extensive Workday experience including Core HCM, Payroll, and benefits modules.
• Experience exploring or implementing AI-powered solutions within People Systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a high-performing People Systems function across Workday and peripheral tools.
• Own architecture, governance, and rollout of Workday modules and integrations.
• Manage the broader People tech stack and ensure smooth integrations with Engineering, Finance, and Legal.
• Drive data-driven decisions and AI-enabled insights to improve employee experiences.

Skills

Workday governance

Leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

People systems strategy

Tools

Workday

Greenhouse ATS

Sana

Peakon

Talent Optimization

Job description

At Justworks, you’ll enjoy a welcoming and casual environment, great benefits, wellness program offerings, company retreats, and the ability to interact with and learn from leaders in the startup community. We work hard and care about our most prized asset - our people.

We’re helping businesses get off the ground by enabling them to focus on running their business. We solve HR issues. We’re data-driven and never stop iterating. If you’d like to work in a supportive, entrepreneurial environment, are interested in building something meaningful and having fun while doing it, we’d love to hear from you.

We're united by shared goals and shared motivations at Justworks. These are best summed up in our company values, which are reflected in our product and in our team.

If this sounds like you, you’ll fit right in.

Who You Are

At Justworks, People Systems are the foundation of exceptional employee experiences. Beyond tools, they’re enablers of a thriving, inclusive, and high-performing culture. As the Manager, People Systems (Workday), you’ll lead the team responsible for shaping and scaling this infrastructure, delivering seamless, impactful solutions that make every interaction across the employee lifecycle - feel intuitive and empowering.

Over the 12-18mo, we’ve rolled out the core Workday modules (Core HCM, Advanced Compensation, and Payroll) and are now entering an exciting new chapter. We’ve expanded our ecosystem to include tools like Peakon, Sana, and Talent Optimization, while continuing to invest in world-class peripheral platforms that support our Justworkers - such as our ATS (Greenhouse). Your work will be pivotal in optimizing, integrating, and evolving these systems to unlock new value across the business.

You are both a systems thinker and a people-first leader. You bring depth in Workday configuration and governance, paired with an ability to understand user needs and simplify the complex. You see systems as powerful levers to automate, connect, and elevate how we work. You understand that when systems work well, managers lead better, employees thrive, and the People team scales with impact.

Most of all, you’re energized by what comes next: leading with AI, simplifying workflows, unlocking automation and building the infrastructure that enables data-driven, meaningful experiences and moments that matter - for every Justworker.

What you will work on

As the Manager, People Systems, you will help lead the evolution of our People technology ecosystem - starting with a strong Workday foundation and scaling toward an integrated, intelligent experience for all Justworkers. You’ll bring operational excellence, cross-functional partnership, and systems fluency to your work as you:

Lead and Develop a High-Performing People Systems Function

• Manage and grow a team of People Systems professionals responsible for day-to-day support, ongoing optimization, and strategic enhancements across all People technology platforms.
• Set and manage team priorities, ensuring high-quality delivery, ownership, and accountability across initiatives.
• Foster a culture of collaboration, continuous learning, and operational excellence.
• Serve as a key leader within the People team, fostering collaboration and alignment with the broader vision.
• Position People team as a whole as a business-facing CoE and elevate its profile and service levels.

Optimize and Scale Our Workday Ecosystem

• Own the end-to-end architecture, configuration, and governance of our Workday platform, including all modules: Core HCM, Time Tracking & Absence, Leave, US Payroll, Benefits, Advanced Compensation, Peakon, Talent & Performance, Sana & Integrations.
• Own the design, testing and implementation of any new build integrations to internal or 3rd party applications. In addition support the maintenance and ongoing operation of inventory of ~50 integrations across multiple Workday technologies (RaaS, EIB, Template, Studio etc)
• Lead the rollout of new modules - ensuring alignment with our employee experience and growth strategies.
  Drive automation and simplification efforts that reduce friction, improve data quality, and empower employee and manager self-service.

Manage the Broader People Tech Stack

• Lead the People Systems roadmap and oversee the ecosystem of world-class peripheral tools supporting the Justworks employee lifecycle, including our ATS (Greenhouse).
• Ensure smooth integrations between Workday and adjacent systems, collaborating with partners in Engineering, Finance, and Legal to maintain data flow, compliance, and usability.
• Evaluate and recommend new technologies that enhance scale, usability, or analytics capabilities.

Enable Strategic Insights and Employee Impact

• Partner closely with People leadership, People Ops, DEIB, and business leaders to identify needs and design systems solutions that support strategic initiatives like job architecture, internal mobility, performance, AI enablement, workforce planning.
• Champion the use of data and insights to inform business decisions, drive accountability, and measure employee experience.
• Leverage AI and automation tools to improve operational efficiency, enable personalization, and scale People practices across the organization.

Drive Change and Deliver Seamless Experiences

• Serve as a trusted advisor and partner to stakeholders across the business, translating People needs into scalable system solutions.
• Lead Workday release planning, testing, and communication to ensure readiness and adoption of new features.
• Be curious about how AI and automation can continue to serve our Justworks employees, our customers, and our team - to improve experiences.
• Continuously seek out opportunities to improve how Justworkers experience People systems - making every touchpoint more intuitive, efficient, and impactful.
• Full contract and vendor management.

How You Will Do Your Work

As a Manager, People Systems, how you achieve results is just as important as what you deliver. You’ll lead with curiosity, collaboration, and clarity - balancing deep technical knowledge with a people-first mindset. Success in this role means building systems that empower Justworkers and scale with the business. You’ll do this by:

Thinking Systemically, Acting Strategically
You understand how systems interconnect across the employee lifecycle and you approach challenges with a strategic lens. You balance short-term needs with long-term scalability, designing infrastructure that grows with us.

Translating Complexity Into Clarity
You excel at connecting the dots between business needs, user experience, and system capabilities. You distill technical concepts into clear plans, enabling better decision-making and more confident adoption.

Driving Simplicity and Automation
You believe that well-designed systems should reduce friction, not add to it. You proactively identify opportunities to simplify processes, automate workflows, and empower self-service through elegant system design.

Partnering With Purpose
You collaborate cross-functionally with empathy and influence - building trust with key partners across Engineering, People, Legal, and Finance. You bring others along in the process and lead with shared goals.

Leading With Curiosity and Innovation
You embrace emerging tools, AI capabilities, and modern approaches to make People Systems smarter and more impactful. You continuously iterate, experiment, and seek better ways to scale what works.

Communicating With Impact
You are a thoughtful communicator who keeps stakeholders informed, engaged, and aligned. Whether it’s a Systems release plan, a project update, or an integration proposal, your communication is structured, timely, and transparent.

In addition, all Justworkers focus on aligning their behaviors to our core values known as COGIS. It stands for:

• Camaraderie - Day to day you can be seen working together toward a higher purpose. You like to have fun. You’re an active listener, treat people respectfully, and have a strong desire to know and help others.
• Openness - Your default is to be open. You're willing to share information, understand other perspectives, and consider new possibilities. You’re curious, ask open questions, and are receptive to thoughts and feedback from others.
• Grit - You demonstrate grit by having the courage to commit and persevere. You’re committed, earnest, and dive in to get the job done well with a positive attitude.
• Integrity - Simply put, do what you say and say what you'll do. You’re honest and forthright, have a strong moral compass, and strive to match your words with your actions while leading by example.
• Simplicity - Be like Einstein: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler."

Qualifications

• 8+ years of progressive, hands‑on experience in People Systems, preferably within high-growth or rapidly scaling organizations
• 2+ years of experience leading others.
• Extensive experience implementing or managing Workday, with deep knowledge of Core HCM, Advanced Compensation, Payroll, Benefits, and Talent Optimization modules
• Experience with Learning platforms, Greenhouse (ATS) and other peripheral People systems is a plus
• Demonstrated experience exploring or implementing AI-powered solutions within the People Systems space, such as automation, data enrichment, or natural language tools integrated into Workday or adjacent platforms
• A strong sense of curiosity and comfort navigating emerging technologies; able to critically assess AI capabilities, experiment thoughtfully, and champion tools that enhance scale, accuracy, and employee experience
• Proven ability to identify process improvement opportunities and leverage data and metrics to inform decisions and measure impact
• Strong interpersonal and relationship‑building skills, with a track record of building trust across functions and levels
• High emotional intelligence, strong communication skills, and a user‑centered mindset in all systems work.

This role is based in our New York City headquarters. The base wage range for this position will be $147,000 - $190,000 annually.

#LI-SD1 #LI-Hybrid

Actual compensation is based on multiple factors that are unique to each candidate, including and not limited to skill set, level of relevant experience, and specific work location. Salary ranges for positions based in other locations may differ based on the cost of labor in that location.

For more information about Justworks’ Total Reward Philosophy, including all of the perks and benefits we are proud to offer our team members, please visit Total Rewards @ Justworks.

Just Be You

We’re committed to building a culture where everyone feels welcome, supported, and empowered to thrive. We believe that a wide range of perspectives, experiences, and identities strengthens our team and helps us create the kind of workplace—and world—we want to see.

We believe that in order to gather accurate demographic information we need to move beyond traditional questions about gender, race and ethnicity, and sexual orientation in favor of more inclusive and open‑ended approaches. Of course, thinking around these areas is ever‑evolving so, wherever applicable please feel free to select "I prefer to self-describe" and then elaborate so we can use your feedback to inform survey selections in the future.

Participation in this survey is completely optional. Any responses you choose to share will not be associated with your application and will not in any way be used in any hiring decision. We are collecting this information to deepen our understanding of our candidate pool and to continue to foster a welcoming and equitable hiring experience for all.

At Justworks, we are building an open, inclusive, and collaborative culture that values each person’s unique potential. We strive to help every Justworker grow with confidence in the collective service of our company, our community, and our customers.

We know that creating a truly inclusive workplace where everyone thrives is an ongoing journey—one that requires consistency, accountability, and shared commitment. We’re proud of the company we’re building together, one great Justworker at a time.