Principal Distributed Systems Engineer

Workday; Pleasanton (CA); Hybrid; USD 187,000 - 334,000; Full time

Job summary

Workday is seeking a senior data-platform engineer to architect and operate a scalable lakehouse-based data product platform. You will design end-to-end data workflows, governance, and secure multi-tenant access while mentoring engineers across teams.

You will own instrumentation, CI/CD, and configurations using Terraform, dbt Core, Airflow, Trino, and Iceberg to ensure reliable performance at scale.

Qualifications

• Designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed data platforms.
• Experience with high-availability and fault-tolerant systems in production.

Responsibilities

• Architect and build the data-product platform on dbt Core, Airflow, Trino, Iceberg, S3 Tables, and Glue Catalog.
• Own the platform path from project structure to CI/CD and environments.
• Drive performance, partitioning, and query optimization under production load.
• Lead HA/DR design, security, and multi-tenant access control for analytics.
• Define infrastructure as code using Terraform and manage operational excellence.

Skills

Distributed systems

High availability

SQL

Leadership

Security

Terraform

API design

Data platforms

Education

Bachelor’s degree in CS/Engineering

Master’s degree preferred

Tools

dbt Core

Airflow

Trino

Apache Iceberg

S3 Tables / AWS Glue Catalog

Terraform

Looker / Superset / Metabase

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

The Data Platform and Observability Engineering (DPOE) team is building Workday’s next-generation data-product platform the compute, storage, catalog, orchestration, governance, and developer workflows that engineering and analytics teams use to create and operate production data products and marts.

We own the services and infrastructure behind a modern lakehouse stack: dbt Core, Airflow, Trino, Apache Iceberg, Amazon S3 Tables, AWS Glue Catalog, access control, and a visualization layer such as Apache Superset or Metabase. We treat the platform as a product. Our roadmap is how Workday teams model, test, query, and govern high-volume data without each standing up a stack of their own.

About The Role

Own the technical vision and architecture for Workday’s data-product platform — a highly scalable lakehouse that lets teams build, govern, and operate data products and marts. This is a hands‑on, high‑autonomy role for an engineer who can design the platform end‑to‑end (modeling and dbt, orchestration, distributed query, table format, catalog, security, and infrastructure as code) and who still writes and reviews highly performant analytical SQL.

You will set technical direction across multiple teams, mentor senior and staff engineers, and act as the primary architect and escalation point for the platform — from project and pipeline design through query performance, governance, and reliability.

• Architect and build the data-product platform on dbt Core, Airflow, Trino, Apache Iceberg, S3 Tables, and Glue Catalog, designed for high-volume ingestion and interactive query performance.
• Own the platform path teams use to ship products: project structure, orchestration, CI/CD, environments, semantic / metrics definitions, and operational support.
• Drive performance and scaling across modeling and query paths: Iceberg layout and maintenance, partitioning, incremental processing, compression, and Trino tuning under production load.
• Lead HA/DR design for platform services — multi‑AZ resilience, failover, backup/restore, and recovery objectives appropriate to a shared production platform.
• Design security and access‑control architecture, including authentication and authorization for multi‑tenant data access across catalog, compute, storage, and visualization.
• Use Terraform to define how the platform is built and evolved; set the bar for infrastructure, environments, and blast radius.
• Own operational excellence: monitoring, alerting, capacity planning, safe reruns and backfills, and participation in an on‑call rotation for the platform.
• Evaluate and introduce new technologies, open source and cloud‑native and that materially improve scalability, cost efficiency, governance, or developer experience.
• Shape how teams use the platform: reusable dbt and modeling patterns, data‑quality frameworks, and a visualization layer (Apache Superset, Metabase, or equivalent) connected to governed catalogs and Trino.
• Evangelize the platform: publish best practices, mentor engineers across DPOE and partner teams, and act as a technical thought leader for the modern lakehouse and data‑product stack internally.
• Operate with high autonomy in a fast‑moving, ambiguous environment, setting technical direction with minimal oversight while aligning with broader platform strategy.

About You

You have designed and operated large‑scale data or distributed systems in production. You still write code. You can start from a blank dbt project and from a blank Terraform stack, and you can explain how Airflow, Trino, Iceberg, the catalog, object storage, and access control share responsibility.

You think about the platform as a product. You care about scalability, reliability, performance, security, operability, and developer experience not just whether an individual query or pipeline works. You raise the quality of architecture, SQL, and infrastructure as more teams adopt the platform.

Basic Qualification

• 14+ years experience in software development engineering.
• 6+ years experience specifically focused on designing, building, and operating complex distributed system architectures, evidenced by successful deployment of systems with high availability (e.g., 99.9% uptime) and fault tolerance.
• 8+ years experience with at least two of the following programming languages (e.g., Java, Python, Go), including experience in writing production‑level code for distributed systems.
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field such as Computer Science, Engineering, or a related discipline; a Master’s degree (e.g., MS in Computer Science, Distributed Systems, or related field) is strongly preferred or equivalent practical experience.

Other Qualifications

• Expert-level ability in algorithmic thinking to architect highly efficient and scalable solutions for high-volume data and interactive query workloads.
• Deep expertise in API development, including advanced API protocols or architectural patterns around query engines, catalogs, and platform services.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems principles, including partitioning, consensus or coordination, fault tolerance, and failure recovery.
• Proven ability to design and implement high‑availability strategies for critical distributed data systems.
• Extensive experience with large-scale data processing and lakehouse platforms (for example Kafka, Spark, Flink, Airflow, Trino, Apache Iceberg, Amazon S3 / S3 Tables, AWS Glue Data Catalog).
• Production dbt Core experience at scale: large model graphs, testing and data‑quality frameworks, incremental models, and reusable project architecture.
• Strong production SQL and data‑modeling experience, including query and physical‑layout optimization.
• Experience using Terraform (or equivalent) to design and operate production cloud infrastructure for a data platform.
• Experience designing multi‑tenant access control, IAM, encryption, and governed access for analytical data.
• Experience with a visualization or semantic layer such as Apache Superset, Metabase, Looker, or comparable tools.
• Deep understanding of large-scale systems design: distributed data management, scalability, and cost‑aware architecture.
• Strong understanding of system security principles for complex distributed data environments.
• Proven ability to lead collaboration within and across software teams and to drive architectural direction.
• Strong technical writing, documentation, and presentation skills.

Workday Pay Transparency Statement

The annualized base salary ranges for the primary location and any additional locations are listed below. Workday pay ranges vary based on work location. 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. Recruiters can share more detail during the hiring process. Each candidate’s compensation offer will be based on multiple factors including, but not limited to, geography, experience, skills, job duties, and business need, among other things. For more information regarding Workday’s comprehensive benefits, please click here.

Primary Location: USA.CA.Pleasanton

Primary Location Base Pay Range: $222,900 USD - $334,300 USD

Additional US Location(s) Base Pay Range: $187,100 USD - $334,300 USD

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.

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 as otherwise provided under applicable law.

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.

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

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