Principal Software Development Engineer - US Federal

Workday•Reston, VA

22h•$173,300 - $309,600•Hybrid

About The Position

Workday is seeking a Principal Software Development Engineer (SDE) to be part of the Federal Cloud Platform Engineering team. This team supports direct and indirect contracts with the U.S. Federal Government which, due to federal government security requirements, mandates all Workday personnel working on the contracts be United States citizens (naturalized or native). This role will support one or more direct or indirect contracts with the U.S. Federal Government which, due to federal government security requirements, mandates that all Workday personnel working on the contracts be United States citizens (naturalized or native). This role may require a security clearance at the TS/SCI w/CI Poly level. Applicants must have the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government issued security clearance. An active TS/SCI w/CI Poly is preferred. May be required to be on site at client locations in the DC, MD, and VA (DMV) area. As a Principal SDE on the Federal Cloud Platform Engineering team, you will focus on design, development, analysis, acquisition, installation, modification and support of operating systems, deployments, databases, utilities and network-related tools! You will conduct programming and support activities, such as new or revised program language codes, processing routines and report generations. You will also conduct programming tasks including program design, program coding, debugging and documentation to increase flexibility in deployments. As part of our team, you will oversee and manage deployment of Workday technology stack on air-gapped cloud environments, develop proprietary tools, and deliver analytics to enable optimized deployments company-wide. This role is ideal for engineers with a holistic approach to cloud deployment, performance, and scalability who thrive on driving innovation and system-wide improvements.

Requirements

US CITIZENSHIP IS REQUIRED
8+ years in deploying large-scale, complex applications, with 3+ years in cloud-based deployments on AWS or GCP.
4+ years experience with automation tools and languages, including Ansible, Python, Go, Chef, and Puppet; proficient in CI/CD, build management and monitoring.
4+ years experience with networks, servers, storage, and operating systems in cloud environments; skilled in deployment orchestration and automation frameworks.
Hands-on experience with infrastructure automation tools like Chef, Puppet, and Ansible.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience in software engineering and automation.

Nice To Haves

Preferred DoD 8570/8140 compliant with at least IAT Level Il certification, including a current Computing Environment (CE) credential and one approved specialty certification (e.g., CompTIA CySA+, GICSP, CASP+)
Extensive experience in developing orchestration and automation frameworks using Ansible and Jenkins, with cloud deployments
Proven ability to introduce, integrate, and implement new technologies rapidly.
Skilled in network analysis and troubleshooting, using tools like tcpdump to resolve network, firewall, and connectivity issues in collaboration with engineering teams.
Proficient in Unix/Linux environments, with strong Python scripting expertise for automation and system management.
Familiar with Agile/Scrum practices, including sprint planning and daily stand-ups using Jira; excellent communication skills and a collaborative approach in team environments.
Extensive experience creating and operating automation frameworks for deployment orchestration in production environments.
Over 5 years of experience building and maintaining pipelined automation for large-scale deployments across multiple build versions.
Solid understanding of networks, protocols, servers, storage systems, and operating systems in cloud environments.
Proficient in at least one core programming language (e.g., Ruby, Python, or Go) for deployment automation.
Deep understanding of CI/CD processes, build management, monitoring, alerting, and centralized logging for cloud and on-prem environments.

Responsibilities

Manage and optimize Workday in the air-gapped U.S. AWS cloud regions and in doing so, form the nexus of the core team responsible for this mission as well as closely working with our commercial software engineering teams responsible for the overall Workday platform.
Partner with the Workday Federal Cyber Defense team responsible for security operations, overall cybersecurity posture, governance, risk, and compliance, and platform security health.
Develop and maintain deployment tools and analytics to support company-wide deployment flexibility and cost savings
Collaborate across teams to ensure robust, scalable, and efficient solutions.