Workday Production Support & Release Lead

U.S. Bank; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 120,000 - 141,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare benefits

401(k) & retirement plan

Paid vacation

Job summary

U.S. Bank is seeking an experienced Workday Production Support & Release Lead to own the stability, testing, and lifecycle of the enterprise Workday platform across HCM and Finance. This role emphasizes operations, reliability, and governance, with collaboration across ITSM, Release Management, SRE, and QA automation.

You will drive incident response, major changes, and regression testing programs, while coordinating bi-annual releases and platform improvements in a large-scale environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent work experience.
• Five to six years of relevant experience.
• Expertise in Workday Platform Administration and production support.
• Experience with ITIL-based incident, problem, change, and release management.

Responsibilities

• Lead day-to-day production support operations for the Workday platform, ensuring platform stability, availability, and business continuity across HCM and Finance.
• Own incident, problem, and change management processes, including major incident response, RCA, and remediation planning.
• Monitor platform health through KPIs, dashboards, alerts, and operational metrics, driving proactive issue identification and resolution.
• Lead Workday bi-annual release planning, feature impact assessments, deployment readiness reviews, and production enablement activities.
• Coordinate tenant refreshes, migrations, environment readiness, and deployment schedules while ensuring compliance with change governance processes and CAB approvals.
• Establish and manage an enterprise test automation and regression testing program, validating platform readiness for releases, patches, and tenant updates.
• Drive automation of operational workflows, service processes, and self-service capabilities to improve efficiency, reduce manual effort, and minimize production incidents.
• Partner with Product, HR Technology, Finance Technology, Security, Risk, and external vendors to deliver executive reporting on platform reliability, operational risks, and release performance.

Skills

Workday Operations

Production Support

Incident & Change Management

Release Management

SRE & Test Automation

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

ITIL framework

Job description

At U.S. Bank, we're on a journey to do our best. Helping the customers and businesses we serve to make better and smarter financial decisions and enabling the communities we support to grow and succeed. We believe it takes all of us to bring our shared ambition to life, and each person is unique in their potential. A career with U.S. Bank gives you a wide, ever-growing range of opportunities to discover what makes you thrive at every stage of your career. Try new things, learn new skills and discover what you excel at—all from Day One.

Job Description

Workday Production Support & Release Lead

owns the operational health, release management, test automation, and continuous improvement of the enterprise Workday platform - spanning production operations, incident management, release coordination, platform monitoring, and enterprise regression testing across HCM and Finance. This is an operations, reliability, and release-assurance leadership role, best suited to candidates from Workday Operations, ITSM, Release Management, SRE, or Test Automation backgrounds rather than traditional software engineering.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead day-to-day production support operations for the Workday platform, ensuring platform stability, availability, and business continuity across HCM and Finance.
• Own incident, problem, and change management processes, including major incident response, root cause analysis (RCA), and remediation planning.
• Monitor platform health through KPIs, dashboards, alerts, and operational metrics, driving proactive issue identification and resolution.
• Lead Workday bi-annual release planning, feature impact assessments, deployment readiness reviews, and production enablement activities.
• Coordinate tenant refreshes, migrations, environment readiness, and deployment schedules while ensuring compliance with change governance processes and CAB approvals.
• Establish and manage an enterprise test automation and regression testing program, validating platform readiness for releases, patches, and tenant updates.
• Drive automation of operational workflows, service processes, and self-service capabilities to improve efficiency, reduce manual effort, and minimize production incidents.
• Partner with Product, HR Technology, Finance Technology, Security, Risk, and external vendors to deliver executive reporting on platform reliability, operational risks, and release performance.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree, or equivalent work experience
• Five to six years of relevant experience

Required Skills & Qualifications

• Strong expertise in Workday Platform Administration, Production Support, Operations Management, and Service Delivery within large-scale enterprise environments.
• Experience managing Workday releases, upgrades, tenant strategy, environment management, and tenant refresh processes across multiple Workday domains.
• Experience supporting Workday HCM, Finance, Security, Integrations, and tenant management in a production environment.
• Deep knowledge of Workday Security, Access Governance, Audit Controls, Compliance, Risk Management, and Enterprise Governance practices.
• Expertise in ITIL-based Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, Release Management, and Major Incident Response.
• Experience implementing automation, monitoring, observability, operational analytics, and continuous improvement frameworks to improve platform reliability and reduce operational risk.
• Strong understanding of Workday Integrations, APIs, Reporting, Data Flows, and Enterprise Platform Services supporting critical business functions.
• Proven ability to define and manage KPIs, SLAs, MTTR, service health metrics, operational scorecards, and executive-level performance reporting.
• Exceptional stakeholder management, vendor management, communication, and leadership skills with the ability to influence cross-functional teams and drive operational excellence across Technology, HR, Finance, Security, and Risk organizations

Success Measures

Improved platform reliability and reduced incident volume / MTTR.

80-90% automated regression coverage for critical business processes.

Successful bi-annual releases with minimal production impact.

Reduced manual testing effort and stronger governance/risk controls.

Location expectations

This role requires working from a U.S. Bank location three (3) or more days per week.

If there's anything we can do to accommodate a disability during any portion of the application or hiring process, please refer to our disability accommodations for applicants.

Benefits

Our approach to benefits and total rewards considers our team members' whole selves and what may be needed to thrive in and outside work. That's why our benefits are designed to help you and your family boost your health, protect your financial security and give you peace of mind. Our benefits include the following:

• Healthcare (medical, dental, vision)
• Basic term and optional term life insurance
• Short-term and long-term disability
• Pregnancy disability and parental leave
• 401(k) and employer-funded retirement plan
• Paid vacation (from two to five weeks depending on salary grade and tenure)
• Up to 11 paid holiday opportunities
• Adoption assistance
• Sick and Safe Leave accruals of one hour for every 30 worked, up to 80 hours per calendar year unless otherwise provided by law

Review our full benefits available by employment status here.

E-Verify

U.S. Bank participates in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security E-Verify program in all facilities located in the United States and certain U.S. territories. The E-Verify program is an Internet-based employment eligibility verification system operated by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Learn more about the E-Verify program.

The salary range reflects figures based on the primary location, which is listed first. The actual range for the role may differ based on the location of the role. In addition to salary, U.S. Bank offers a comprehensive benefits package, including incentive and recognition programs, equity stock purchase 401(k) contribution and pension (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). Pay Range: $119,765.00 - $140,900.00

U.S. Bank will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records for employment. U.S. Bank conducts background checks consistent with applicable local laws, including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance and the California Fair Chance Act as well as the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance. U.S. Bank is subject to, and conducts background checks consistent with the requirements of Section 19 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (FDIA). In addition, certain positions may also be subject to the requirements of FINRA, NMLS registration, Reg Z, Reg G, OFAC, the NFA, the FCPA, the Bank Secrecy Act, the SAFE Act, and/or federal guidelines applicable to an agreement, such as those related to ethics, safety, or operational procedures.

Applicants must be able to comply with U.S. Bank policies and procedures including the Code of Ethics and Business Conduct and related workplace conduct and safety policies.

U.S. Bank is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, religion, color, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or veteran status, and other factors protected under applicable law.