Principal, Software Engineer (Distributed Systems)

Workday•Pleasanton, CA

3d•$187,100 - $334,300•Hybrid

About The Position

The Workday 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 Dev 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.

Requirements

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.
Hands-on AI Integration: Proven ability to integrate AI capabilities directly into scalable software solutions while adhering to Responsible AI practices.
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.
Polyglot & Expert Programming: Expert-level programming proficiency in Java, Scala, and/or Go, with a deep understanding of advanced design patterns and clean code practices.
Modern Tooling & Automation: Deep experience with modern CI/CD pipelines, advanced IDE integrations, and a strong advocacy for robust, automated end-to-end (E2E) testing strategies.
Cloud Efficiency & Optimization: Demonstrated experience managing and scaling cloud footprints across AWS and GCP, with the ability to implement cost-aware architectural patterns and optimize tenant-based infrastructure.
Deep understanding of modern architectural standards, including Model Context Protocol (MCP), to champion and implement a spec-driven development approach.
Passion for Service Ownership: A strong technical stewardship mindset, taking pride in end-to-end service ownership, code quality, and long-term architectural health.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Strong track record of partnering closely with Product Management and cross-functional stakeholders to define, refine, and break down complex technical and product requirements.
Strategic Communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with a demonstrated ability to articulate complex technical concepts and influence both technical and non-technical business partners.
Agile Execution at Scale: Proven success navigating and delivering high-impact initiatives within fast-paced, matrixed, and agile enterprise environments.

Nice To Haves

Experience with frontend frameworks (e.g., React/TypeScript) to support seamless, full-stack feature delivery is a plus.

Responsibilities

Lead the architecture, design, and evolution of core product microservices, ensuring they are secure, scalable, decoupled, and highly available.
Design and deliver large-scale, resilient distributed systems that support mission-critical product features with strong performance and reliability guarantees.
Drive cross-organizational technical strategy to improve the agility, modularity, and operational excellence of our microservices ecosystem.
Identify, define, and drive solutions for complex, ambiguous product and domain challenges that span multiple services and business units
Establish and champion best practices for domain-driven design, distributed systems, strict API contract management, and observability.
Accelerate product velocity and feature delivery through automation, standardization, and repeatable microservice design patterns.
Improve end-to-end observability, reliability, and automated recovery for platform services, including proactive detection, self-healing, and robust incident response.
Advocate for the team by securing alignment on technical debt reduction, architectural modernizations, and the adoption of cutting-edge development tools.
Champion the integration of AI-assisted engineering tools and modern coding techniques, empowering the team to write higher-quality code faster and safer.
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.
Lead cloud infrastructure efficiency and cost optimization initiatives, particularly across large-scale AWS & GCP deployments, ensuring architectural decisions balance high performance with financial scalability