Principal, Software Engineer (Distributed Systems)

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

Join our team and experience Workday!
It's fun to work in a company where people truly believe in what they're doing. At Workday, we're committed to bringing passion and customer focus to the business of enterprise applications. We work hard, and we're serious about what we do. But we like to have a good time, too. In fact, we run our company with that principle in mind every day: One of our core values is fun.
The Developer Platform empowers our customers to expand the business capabilities of Workday by building on our existing technologies with AI capabilities. The mission of the Core Platform Service team is to establish the foundation for Workday Developer Platform providing best in class services such as Event Messaging Platform, Identity Management and Tenant Lifecycle Management. The team builds critical backend infrastructure services for the Workday Dev Platform. Leveraging the latest open-source technologies, our team owns the core security components and inter-service control that power the platform..
We work on scalable microservices and distributed systems, leveraging AI-driven development tools and modern coding practices. Our mission is to solve complex technical challenges, accelerating product velocity while ensuring our core services remain resilient and secure.

About the Role

 

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will partner with engineering and product leadership to shape the platform’s long-term architecture, vision, and strategic investments. We are looking for a product-minded engineer with a startup mentality—someone who can wear multiple hats, thrive in ambiguous environments, and act as an owner to drive core platform initiatives from conception to completion. You will lead the design of large-scale distributed systems and drive cross-team initiatives, prioritizing capabilities that unlock new growth. Ultimately, you will translate abstract, long-horizon goals into phased, executable engineering plans that ensure high-impact delivery across the organization.

This role requires deep expertise in distributed systems and microservices architecture, combined with the ability to translate business requirements into robust technical solutions. You are not just building software to a specification; you possess a deep curiosity about how your components integrate into the broader business ecosystem, a relentless focus on customer adoption, and mastery of AI-driven engineering tools to drastically reduce delivery cycles You will solve complex technical challenges and drive cross-team alignment to ensure scalable, high-velocity delivery.

What You’ll Do

• Architect, design, and evolve core product microservices and large-scale distributed systems that are secure, scalable, highly available, and mission-critical — with full end-to-end ownership of major platform initiatives. 

• Drive cross-organizational technical strategy, resolving complex and ambiguous challenges that span multiple services and business units to improve agility, modularity, and operational excellence. 

• Establish and champion best practices in domain-driven design, API contract management, and observability; advocate for technical debt reduction, architectural modernization, and adoption of cutting-edge tooling.

• Accelerate product velocity through automation, standardization, and repeatable design patterns, while improving end-to-end reliability, self-healing, and incident response across platform services.

• Champion and personally leverage AI-assisted engineering tools and autonomous coding agents (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code) to accelerate delivery, eliminate execution bottlenecks, and elevate code quality across the team.

• Lead cloud infrastructure efficiency and cost optimization across large-scale AWS/GCP deployments, ensuring architectural decisions balance high performance with financial scalability.

• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to senior and staff engineers, raising the overall technical bar and fostering a culture of continuous learning and engineering excellence.  

About You

 

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

• 12+ years of software engineering experience, with a proven track record of designing, building, and maintaining large-scale distributed systems and production-grade microservice architectures.

• 12+ years of hands-on experience with object-oriented or functional programming languages, specifically Java or Scala.

• Solid experience delivering and scaling large distributed production services to a global enterprise customer base.

• 5+ years of experience building, operating, and driving cost-optimization for products within large-scale cloud environments, with deep expertise in AWS and/or GCP (including S3, Lambda, EC2).

• 5+ years of hands-on experience with containerization and orchestration technologies, specifically Docker and Kubernetes.

• Demonstrated proficiency with AI-assisted development tools (Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or similar), including the ability to direct, review, and validate AI-generated code.

Other Qualifications:

• Previous experience as a technical founder or early-stage engineer at a startup (<50 headcount) is highly preferred.  

• Expert programming proficiency in Java or Scala, with deep command of advanced design patterns, clean code practices, and modern architectural standards including Model Context Protocol (MCP) for spec-driven development

• Proven ability to integrate AI capabilities into scalable software solutions while adhering to Responsible AI practices.

• Deep experience with CI/CD pipelines, advanced IDE integrations, and automated end-to-end testing strategies.

• Demonstrated ability to manage and scale cloud footprints across AWS and GCP, with cost-aware architectural patterns and tenant-based infrastructure optimization.

• Strong service ownership mindset — taking pride in end-to-end code quality, long-term architectural health, and operational reliability. 

• Excellent collaborator and communicator: proven track record partnering with Product and cross-functional stakeholders, articulating complex technical tradeoffs, and delivering high-impact initiatives in fast-paced agile environments.

• Experience with frontend frameworks (e.g., React/TypeScript) and/or Developer Platforms, DevTools, or core engineering platforms is a plus.

 

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: USA.CA.Pleasanton

 

Primary Location Base Pay Range: $222,900 USD - $334,300 USD

 

Additional US Location(s) Base Pay Range: $187,100 USD - $334,300 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 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 [email protected].

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