Senior Software Development Engineer

Engg; Colorado; On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Workday is a Fortune 500 company and a leading AI platform for managing people, money, and agents. The Senior Software Development Engineer on the AI Foundations team will design, build, and operate software that hosts and scales AI-powered applications across Workday products.

You will collaborate with machine learning engineers to deliver production-grade backend services powering AI-driven capabilities and agent apps.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software development experience.
• 5+ years of experience with Python development.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate core services and infrastructure for AI development, evaluation, and deployment.
• Own a significant surface area end to end, including production health and on‑call.
• Turn open‑ended problems into scoped, sequenced work for yourself and others.
• Raise the bar through design and code review, and mentor engineers on the team.
• Partner with product, research, and infrastructure teams on tradeoffs and roadmap.

Skills

Python

Distributed systems

APIs

Cloud platforms

Kubernetes

ETL with PySpark

Unix/Linux

On-call

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

AWS

GCP

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

We're an AI platform organization. We build the platform other engineering teams use to develop, evaluate, and deploy AI systems, and we build production applications on top of it - agentic solutions alongside a broad range of classical ML. The work spans the full applied-AI stack: model and agent development, evaluation infrastructure, serving performance and cost, and the pipelines that get it all into an enterprise product. Our systems run against real customer data, so correctness, reliability, and observability matter as much as capability.

About the Role

As a Senior Software Development Engineer on the AI Foundations team, you will be primarily responsible for designing, building, and operating the software systems that host, run, and scale AI-powered applications at Workday.

• Work closely with machine learning engineers to write and maintain production‑grade backend services that power AI‑driven capabilities and agent applications
• Design and implement APIs and service integrations that enable AI capabilities to be consumed across Workday products and platforms
• Build and operate data ingestion and ETL pipelines that support AI application workflows
• Apply distributed systems principles in production to address scalability, concurrency, fault tolerance, and performance challenges
• Ensure systems meet enterprise requirements for security, privacy, robustness, and compliance
• Own services through their full lifecycle, including deployment, monitoring, debugging, and ongoing operational improvements

What you'll do

• Design, build, and operate core services and infrastructure for AI development, evaluation, and deployment
• Own a significant surface area end to end, including production health and on‑call
• Turn open‑ended problems into scoped, sequenced work - for yourself and for others
• Raise the bar through design and code review, and mentor engineers on the team
• Partner with product, research, and infrastructure teams on tradeoffs and roadmap

About You

You are a strong technical leader with deep Python expertise and solid software engineering skills, capable of writing beautiful, well‑designed code while delivering solutions efficiently.

Basic Qualification

• 8+ years of professional software development experience, including architecting, building, and scaling secure, robust, and efficient software systems
• 5+ years of experience with Python development
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.

Other Qualifications

• Understanding of object-oriented design principles and ability to apply them in a Python context
• Proficiency with advanced Python concepts, such as asynchronous and concurrent programming, generators, and higher‑order abstractions
• Ability to write clean, testable, and well‑structured code, with high standards for clarity, aesthetics, and long‑term maintainability
• Deep systems knowledge, including comfort operating in and debugging Unix/Linux environments, fluency with command‑line tooling, and understanding of practical networking fundamentals
• Understanding of distributed systems concepts, including concurrency, fault tolerance, and performance tradeoffs
• Ability to design and build well‑defined, stable APIs and service interfaces for consumption by other teams and systems
• Ability to build ETL pipelines that efficiently process large amounts of data using tools like PySpark.
• Proficiency with cloud and container platforms, including containerized workloads and orchestration systems (e.g., AWS or GCP, Docker, Kubernetes)
• Ability to collaborate effectively across teams, working closely with other engineers while maintaining independent execution
• Ownership mindset, able to take responsibility for a work area and deliver high‑quality, reliable systems
• Ability to mentor and coach other engineers, promoting best practices and raising the engineering bar
• Architectural thinking skills, with the ability to contribute meaningful ideas and practical solutions in design and architecture discussions
• Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders

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 li