Senior Software Development Engineer - AI Core at Workday

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

Do you want to architect the intelligence layer that powers enterprise AI? The AI Core team, part of Workday's AI Platform organization, sits at the frontier of agentic AI — building the foundational systems that enable autonomous agents to reason, act, and deliver deep value across Workday's HR and Finance products.

A core belief driving our work: agents are only as good as the information they can access. That is why we invest deeply in the retrieval layer — building the systems that help agents find the right information at the right time, with the accuracy and speed that enterprise workflows demand. The AI Core team tackles challenging problems at the intersection of machine learning and enterprise-scale systems for information retrieval and recommendation use cases.

About the Role

As a Senior Software Development Engineer on the AI Core team, you will be primarily responsible for designing, building, and operating the software systems that host, run, and scale AI-powered agentic applications at Workday. You will build the agentic tooling for both unstructured and structured information retrieval across Workday’s vast, rich and inclusive datasets.

Specifically, you will:

• Design and implement production-grade services, APIs, and ETL pipelines in the ML RAG platform, which is consumed by numerous AI-driven Workday products and high-priority agents

• Apply distributed systems principles in production to address scalability, concurrency, fault tolerance, and performance challenges

• Automate CI/CD and testing workflows, and proactively look for ways to improve developer experience

• 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

About You

You are a strong technical leader with deep Python expertise and solid software engineering skills, capable of writing well-designed code and 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:Technical Skills:

• Understanding of object-oriented design principles. Proficiency with advanced Python concepts such as asynchronous and concurrent programming, generators, higher-order abstractions, Pydantic and Pyspark.

• Preferred prior experience with building scalable services and pipelines for ML use cases in Production

• 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

• Proficiency with cloud and container platforms, including containerized workloads and orchestration systems (e.g., AWS or GCP, Docker, Kubernetes)

**Leadership and Communication Skills:

• 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 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: CAN.BC.Vancouver

Primary CAN Base Pay Range: $140,000 - $210,000 CAD

Additional CAN Location(s) Base Pay Range: $140,000 - $210,000 CAD

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.

At Workday, we are committed to providing an accessible and inclusive hiring experience where all candidates can fully demonstrate their skills. If you require assistance or an accommodation at any point, please email accommodations@workday.com.

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