Sr. Principal Architect - Observability

Engg; Pleasanton (CA); Hybrid; USD 262,000 - 393,000; Full time

Job summary

Workday in Pleasanton, CA is seeking a senior architect to lead the Observability platform, shaping standards and architecture. You will work closely with Observability Platform engineers, product managers, and stakeholders to evolve the platform and evangelize its use.

The role requires domain expertise across all observability pillars, driving incident detection, triage, and recovery, and aligning tooling with OpenTelemetry and industry standards.

Qualifications

• BS/MS in Computer Science or related field.
• 10+ years software engineering/architect background.
• 10+ years' experience writing high quality code (Java/Scala/Go/Python) and design systems.
• Hands-on expertise in Observability platforms: Prometheus, Mimir, Elasticsearch, ClickHouse, VictoriaMetrics, Jaeger/Zipkin.

Responsibilities

• Provide architectural leadership for Workday’s Observability Platform and Services.
• Be the domain expert across all pillars of Observability.
• Drive incident detection, triage, and recovery with Observability MCP and Agents.
• Standardize tooling, publish standards, leverage OpenTelemetry.
• Collaborate with Infrastructure, Technology Operations & Product teams.
• Promote and evangelize Observability to engineering teams.
• Establish standard processes and onboarding for engineers.

Skills

Software architecture

Java

Scala

Go

Python

Prometheus

Mimir

Elasticsearch

ClickHouse

VictoriaMetrics

Jaeger

Zipkin

LangChain

LLM orchestration

Observability for AI Agents

Education

BS/MS in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Kubernetes

Job description

About the Team

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 Role

This is a hands‑on role, where you will be responsible for the architecture, standards, best practices for all things Observability at Workday. You will spend your time by working closely with the Observability Platform engineers, product managers, stakeholders, evolving the platform architecture, contributing to the Observability platform and acting as an evangelist for the platform.

Here are some of the things you will be doing: This is a hands‑on role, where you will provide architectural leadership for Workday’s Observability Platform and Services. You will be the domain expert across all the pillars of Observability. Drive Agentic experiences for incident detection, triage, and recovery - by owning & driving the Observability MCP and Observability Agents. Ensure a seamless Observability experience across data domains (logs, metrics, traces, alerts) and different infrastructure types (Virtualized, Kubernetes, Bare metal, etc.) Drive standardization of the Observability tooling, develop and publish standards, leverage open source specifications (OpenTelemetry etc) Closely collaborate with the Infrastructure, Technology Operations & Product teams. Promote & Evangelize Observability to all Workday engineering teams. Establish standard processes, frameworks, and help onboard engineering teams.

About You

Basic Qualifications

• BS/MS in Computer Science or a related technical field
• Must have at least 10+ years of software engineering/architect background and a proven track record of delivering high quality products at massive scale
• Ideal candidate has 10+ years' experience writing high quality code (Java/Scala/Go/Python) and be able to design systems that meet the business needs
• You have hands‑on expertise in Observability platforms like Prometheus, Mimir, Elasticsearch, Clickhouse, VictoriaMetrics, Jaeger/Zipkin etc

Other Qualifications

• Extensive experience with data collection agents, loggers, and visualizing and correlating data sets from multiple domains.
• Expertise in LLM orchestration framework(LangChain etc.), Observability for AI Agents(Latency, quality, online/offline evals, Track multi-turn conversations, tool/agent invocations etc)
• Experience building Observability agents that help with Triage, Root Cause Analysis using open standards like Skills, MCPs and popular orchestration frameworks like LangChain etc.
• You have deployed Observability across the OSI stack.
• Expertise in low-latency/high throughput data processing capabilities a big plus.
• Open Source contributions to popular O11y frameworks & platforms are a big plus.
• Outstanding presentation skills to both technical and executive audiences.
• You have strong communication skills both written and verbal.

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

Primary Location: USA.CA.Pleasanton Primary Location Base Pay Range: $261,800 USD - $392,600 USD Additional US Location(s) Base Pay Range: $221,600 USD - $392,600 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 team