Principal AI Researcher: Lead Agentic AI & LLM Innovation

Workday; Pleasanton (CA); Hybrid; USD 191,000 - 342,000; Full time

Job summary

Workday is seeking a Principal AI Researcher to lead the AI Research Team in Pleasanton, CA. You will shape research roadmaps for agentic reasoning and LLMs, guiding theory to real-world, enterprise-scale deployments across HR and Finance workflows.

You will influence production-ready services, supervise a high-impact research group, and collaborate with Product Leaders to unlock strategic value through AI innovations.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of AI/ML research experience with production impact.
• Ph.D. or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Math, Physics, or equivalent.
• 4+ years of professional experience using deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow.
• 2+ years of deep expertise in LLMs or VLMs, specifically in training, alignment (RLHF/DPO), or agentic reasoning frameworks.
• SOTA Publication Record: notable publications or shipping AI innovations at scale.

Responsibilities

• Define research direction in Agentic AI and LLMs.
• Advance agentic systems with retrieval, grounding, memory, and personalization.
• Lead foundational model research across pre-training and domain alignment for HR/Finance workflows.
• Publish and contribute to open source in top AI venues.
• Bridge research and production by partnering with engineering pods to scale solutions.
• Mentor the research team and foster rigorous scientific culture.

Skills

AI/ML research

Deep learning

LLMs

Agentic reasoning

Publications

Education

Ph.D. or Master’s in CS/AI/Math/Physics

Tools

PyTorch

JAX

TensorFlow

Job description

Workday is seeking a Principal AI Researcher to lead the AI Research Team in Pleasanton, CA. You will shape research roadmaps for agentic reasoning and LLMs, guiding theory to real-world, enterprise-scale deployments across HR and Finance workflows.

You will influence production-ready services, supervise a high-impact research group, and collaborate with Product Leaders to unlock strategic value through AI innovations.