Software Engineer/Senior Software Engineer, Workday
AI Platform, Agent Cell
$148.2-234k
Salary range dependent on candidate location
Office located in Boulder, CO or Pleasanton, CA
Enterprise AI platform for managing HR, finance & IT
Open for applications
Enterprise AI platform for managing HR, finance & IT
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$148.2-234k
Salary range dependent on candidate location
Office located in Boulder, CO or Pleasanton, CA
1001+ employees
Company mission
To leverage the power of AI to elevate humans and supercharge work, moving business forever forward.
Role
Who you are
- 5+ years experience in software development engineering including designing, developing, and deploying software solutions
- 8+ years experience in software development engineering, architecting, building, and scaling robust and efficient software systems
- 6+ years of software engineering experience building backend or platform systems
- Strong experience with distributed systems, APIs, and service-oriented architecture
- Experience building secure systems with least-privilege patterns and policy controls
- Proficiency in at least one systems or backend language (for example, Java, Go, Rust, or Python)
- Experience operating production services with strong reliability and observability practices
- Demonstrated ownership of complex technical projects from design through production
- Strong collaboration and communication skills in cross-functional environments
What the job involves
- The Agent Runtime team builds Workday’s secure execution platform for enterprise AI agents
- We are creating the runtime substrate that enforces policy by architecture, not by prompt, with deterministic controls for data access, tool use, model routing, and auditability
- Our charter spans runtime isolation, policy enforcement boundaries, model mediation, and observability at scale
- We partner closely with other engineering and platform teams at Workday to deliver a multi-language, enterprise-grade agent runtime
- As a Senior Software Development Engineer, you will design and build core runtime capabilities for policy-governed agent execution. You will own high-impact technical areas across sandbox execution, sidecar interfaces, enforcement flows, and production reliability
- Design and implement core runtime services for secure, isolated agent execution
- Build deterministic enforcement pathways for data, context, tool, and model boundaries
- Define and evolve service interfaces and contracts across maincar and sidecar components
- Improve performance, scalability, and resilience for high-concurrency workloads
- Build deep observability into runtime behavior, policy decisions, and audit traces
- Partner with cross-functional teams to integrate data prep, context assembly, tool gating, and model mediation
- Participate in architecture reviews, incident response, and operational hardening
- Mentor engineers and help raise engineering quality across the team
- As a Software Development Engineer, you will implement key runtime components and services that power secure agent execution. You will contribute to design, coding, testing, and operations for systems that enforce policy and reliability guarantees in production
- Build backend services and runtime components for cell lifecycle and execution control
- Implement policy-aware data, context, tool, and model access pathways
- Contribute to interface development between runtime components and partner systems
- Write high-quality, testable code and participate in code and design reviews
- Develop telemetry and logging capabilities for traceability and operational insight
- Support production operations, performance tuning, and incident follow-through
- Collaborate closely with senior engineers and partner teams on roadmap delivery
Application process
- End Date: 10/08/2026
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 & CEO)Annel began their career at Morgan Stanley as a Corporate Finance Analyst. They then spent nearly 6 years at PeopleSoft as a Senior VP before co-founding Workday in 2005.
Salary benchmarks
We don't have enough data yet to provide salary benchmarks for this role.
Submit your salary to help other candidates with crowdsourced salary estimates.
Share this job
View 100 more jobs at Workday