Principal AI Engineer, Workday
$217-325k
Salary applicable for candidates based in Colorado, may vary in other locations
More information about location
Enterprise AI platform for managing HR and finance
Be an early applicant
Enterprise AI platform for managing HR and finance
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$217-325k
Salary applicable for candidates based in Colorado, may vary in other locations
More information about location
1001+ employees
Company mission
To leverage the power of AI to elevate humans and supercharge work, moving business forever forward.
Role
Who you are
- 10+ years of professional software engineering experience with deep expertise in distributed systems, cloud computing, and API design, plus 2+ years of dedicated focus building production-grade LLM/agentic systems
- OR 7+ years of experience specifically within Machine Learning Engineering or AI application development, with 3+ years dedicated to shipping LLM-backed products
- 3+ years of hands-on experience integrating large models (LLMs, Foundation Models) and modern AI APIs into user-facing enterprise products
- 2+ years of experience designing and scaling complex AI orchestration architectures—including multi-agent frameworks, routing layers, and advanced RAG pipelines
- 6+ years of experience optimizing application performance (specifically tackling constraints like API latency and user interaction design), with 2+ years applied to modern LLM constraints (such as token management, cost optimization, and context-window efficiency)
- 6+ years of proven experience leveraging cloud computing platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP) to deploy highly responsive, scalable systems
- Bachelor’s degree (Master’s preferred) in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent technical field
- Responsible AI Stewardship: Deep understanding of how to implement governance, guardrails, security layers, and evaluation mechanisms necessary when deploying autonomous agents over sensitive enterprise HR and financial data
- Proven track record of technically leading cross-functional pods, mentoring senior engineers, and steering the product development lifecycle from abstract concept to successful deployment
- Product-First AI Mindset: Deep focus on business value, user experience, and applying deep learning/large models directly to solve practical end-user challenges
- System Design & Integration: Expert-level ability to architect robust application layers that wrap around AI models, ensuring system predictability, error handling, and seamless UX integration
- Experimentation & Evaluation: Skilled in rapid prototyping, benchmarking model outputs against product requirements, and managing continuous experimentation cycles for agentic behavior
- Thrives in Ambiguity: Highly autonomous leader capable of taking complex, open-ended product goals and turning them into scalable, concrete engineering realities
What the job involves
- Agent Factory is where Workday’s next chapter gets built. We’re forming small, senior, cross-functional AI teams that bring together product leaders, AI engineers, and full-stack builders to create intelligent agents used by millions of people every day
- This is production-grade AI—deeply embedded into Workday’s platform—not research experiments or maintenance work
- Teams own problems end to end, collaborate tightly across disciplines, and use the right tools to solve real customer challenges at global scale
- You’ll work at the intersection of AI, platform architecture, and human workflows, with the autonomy to shape how agents reason, act, and scale responsibly. High trust, high expectations, and real impact. Engineering, but brighter
- As a Principal AI Engineer in Agent Factory, you will lead the end-to-end system design, architectural framework, and product integration of Workday’s next generation of intelligent agents
- While our ML Engineers focus on building, training, and optimizing foundational algorithms, your mission is intelligence orchestration and product delivery—connecting the brain to the product
- Sitting at the intersection of AI capabilities, enterprise platforms, and human workflows, you will architect how foundational models are safely and reliably integrated into functional, production-grade software
- You will own the design, experimentation, and orchestration of complex agentic workflows, translating cutting-edge AI capabilities into enterprise-grade business value
- Because these agents interact with sensitive HR and financial data at a global scale, you will be a core champion for Responsible and Governed AI—architecting systems with strict guardrails for data privacy, predictability, and explainability
- This role requires a balance of high-level system design and hands-on execution, solving critical product constraints like latency, cost, and reliability
Application process
- End Date: July 31, 2026
Our take
Workday is a cloud-based software vendor that provides management of workforces and finances. The company uses a single database for workforce management and financial management to offer integration and optimize business intelligence across companies. It has added to the packages and tools it offers over the years, providing analytic options that allow companies to combine third-party data with information collected by Workday.
The company has also grown through acquisitions and partnerships to broaden its capabilities.. Most recently, in 2025 it purchases Sana, an AI-driven enterprise knowledge and learning platform, to create a "new front door for work". This acquisition allows Workday to integrate Sana's AI-powered search, agents, and learning capabilities with its own data and workflows, allowing employees to access information, automate tasks, and complete their day entirely within Workday.
Through a combination of strategic acquisitions and in-house development, WOrkday has built a comprehensive suite of HR, financial, and enterprise tools. By focusing on innovation and AI-driven workflows, the company continues to push productivity and decision-making for organizations worldwide. Building on this track record, Workday is very much positioned for even more growth, reinforcing its status as a leader in shaping the future of work.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
16% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Oct 2011
$85m
SERIES F
Apr 2009
$75m
SERIES E
Total funding: $215.3m
Company HQ
Pleasanton, CA
Leadership
Aneel Bhusri
(Co-Founder & Executive Chair)Annel began his career at Morgan Stanley as a Corporate Finance Analyst. He then spent nearly 6 years at PeopleSoft as a Senior VP before co-founding Workday in 2005, where he has served as the CEO ever since.
Carl Eschenbach
(CEO)Carl joined Workday in 2022 as Co-CEO, becoming CEO in 2024. He has also been a Partner at Sequoia Capital since 2016. Previously, he spent 14 years at VMware as President and COO and 3 years at Inktomi Corporation as the VP of North America Sales.
Peter Bailis
(CTO)Prior to joining Workday in 2025, People was a VP of Engineering at Google. He also previously founded Sisu Data, where he served as the CEO for over 5 years.
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