Senior Principal Architect, AI Platform

Workday; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Workday, Inc. is seeking a Senior Principal Architect for the AI Platform. This role leads end-to-end architecture, defines the target state, and ensures coherence across architecture pillars with expertise in distributed systems, AI platforms, model engineering, and governance.

The position is a senior individual contributor role with broad influence, requiring the ability to align many teams around standards and to advise executives on technical strategy and investment.

Qualifications

• Define long-term architecture vision and target state.
• Own platform services powering agents and AI workloads.
• Set standards for reliability, performance, scalability, and fault tolerance.
• Define how models are integrated, served, evaluated, and optimized.
• Define the cloud architecture across AWS and GCP, including multi-cloud design.
• Partner with governance, security, privacy, and compliance teams to bake governance into architecture.
• Lead architecture review processes and influence critical design decisions across the organization.
• Evaluate frameworks, platforms, and vendors to guide build vs. buy decisions.
• Collaborate across pillars and Workday teams to align on shared standards.

Responsibilities

• Define long-term architecture vision and target state for the AI Platform, with a practical roadmap to reach it.
• Own the overall architecture of the platform services powering agents and AI workloads.
• Set architectural standards for reliability, performance, scalability, and fault tolerance.
• Define model integration, serving, evaluation, and optimization strategies across the platform.
• Define cloud architecture across AWS and GCP, including multi-cloud design and cost-effective patterns.
• Embed governance, security, privacy, and compliance into architectural decisions from the start.
• Lead architecture review processes and guide critical design decisions that shape the platform.
• Evaluate frameworks, platforms, and vendors to support long-term architecture choices.
• Coordinate across pillars and Workday teams to ensure clean integration with products.

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

At Workday, we believe AI agents will change how people and organizations work. The AI Platform organization builds the foundation that makes this possible: a secure, trusted, and scalable platform that Workday, our customers, and our partners use to build, run, and manage AI agents across some of the world's largest enterprises.

Our team owns the full life of an agent. We govern how agents operate, help organizations build and measure them, and run them reliably at scale. We also manage the models that power them, route each request to the right model and provider, and provide the data and infrastructure underneath it all. Our customers trust Workday with their most sensitive people and financial data, and we hold our platform to that standard.

About the Role

The Sr Principal is the most senior architecture leader in the AI Platform organization. This person owns the end-to-end architecture of the platform, defines the target state and the path to get there, and ensures every pillar builds toward a single, coherent design. The role draws on deep expertise in distributed systems, AI platforms, model engineering, and AI governance.

This is a senior individual contributor role with broad influence across the organization and the company. The successful candidate combines a clear architectural vision with the judgment to make lasting design decisions, the ability to align many teams around shared standards, and the communication skills to advise executives on technical strategy and investment.

Key Accountabilities

• Architecture Vision and Target State Define the long-term architecture vision and target state for the AI Platform, along with a practical roadmap to reach it. Ensure the architecture scales with Workday's growing agent ecosystem and stays aligned with business strategy.
• End-to-End Platform Architecture Own the overall architecture of the platform services that power agents and AI workloads, including runtimes, orchestration, routing, model management, and data infrastructure. Ensure these services fit together as one platform rather than separate systems.
• Distributed Systems Architecture Set the architectural patterns for the highly available, large-scale distributed systems that underpin the platform. Define the standards for reliability, performance, scalability, and fault tolerance.
• Model Architecture Define how models are integrated, served, evaluated, and optimized across the platform. Set direction on the architectural tradeoffs between model quality, performance, and cost, and ensure the platform can adopt new models quickly.
• Cloud Architecture Define the cloud architecture across AWS and GCP, including multi-cloud design, the use of managed AI services, and cost-effective infrastructure patterns.
• AI Governance by Design Partner with the AI Governance and Sovereignty and Routing teams to build governance, security, privacy, and compliance into the architecture from the start. Ensure the platform supports auditability, responsible AI practices, and evolving regulatory requirements.
• Architecture Standards and Governance Establish the reference architectures, design patterns, and architecture principles used across the organization. Lead the architecture review process and make or guide the critical design decisions that shape the platform.
• Technology Evaluation Lead the evaluation of frameworks, platforms, and vendors, including build versus buy decisions. Ensure technology choices support the long-term architecture rather than short-term needs alone.
• Cross-Pillar and Cross-Company Alignment Work across all pillars of the AI Platform organization, and with architects across Workday, to align on shared standards, resolve design conflicts, and ensure the platform integrates cleanly with Workday products.