Senior Software Development Engineer (US Federal)

Workday•Reston, VA

1d•$148,200 - $264,000•Hybrid

About The Position

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). Location Note: May be required to be on site at client locations in the DC, MD, and VA (DMV) area. Role Overview: As a Sr Software Development Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in guiding Workday’s efforts to build, deploy, and scale solutions for our Kubernetes platform in AWS GovCloud. You will lead infrastructure automation, enhance CI/CD pipelines, build robust observability tools, and drive air-gapped deployment methodologies. You have a growth mindset and thrive in a collaborative, outcome-driven environment where cross-team partnership is key. You will be part of a team promoting a diverse and inclusive culture where you and your teammates are energized, engaged, and excited to solve complex engineering challenges together every day.

Requirements

U.S. Citizenship: Required due to federal government contract requirements.
Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government TS/SCI security clearance with CI Polygraph. An active TS/SCI w/ CI Poly is strongly preferred.
5+ years of hands-on experience building, scaling, and maintaining production cloud infrastructure, DevOps pipelines, or platform engineering systems.
Proven proficiency (3+ years) with infrastructure automation tools such as Terraform or Terragrunt.
Hands-on experience (3+ years) managing continuous delivery pipelines using tools like Argo CD, Jenkins, or GitLab CI.
Proficiency in (3+ years) modern scripting or programming languages, with a preference for Go or Python.
Demonstrated ability (3+ years) to independently lead technical initiatives, troubleshoot distributed systems, and mentor junior engineers.

Nice To Haves

Deep production experience managing containerized workloads in AWS (ideally AWS GovCloud) using Kubernetes and Docker.
Practical experience implementing or managing air-gapped deployment methodologies and isolated cloud architectures.
Background in building robust monitoring, logging, and alerting systems for distributed platforms (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk, etc).
Familiarity with federal security frameworks (e.g., FedRAMP, NIST 800-53, Zero Trust architecture).
DoD 8570/8140 compliance at IAT Level II or higher (e.g., CompTIA Security+, CySA+, CASP+) along with a current Computing Environment credential.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field (or equivalent military / practical engineering experience in lieu of a degree).

Responsibilities

Platform & Workload Management: Run, manage, and scale complex containerized workloads on Kubernetes clusters deployed in AWS GovCloud environments.
Infrastructure Automation: Provision and automate infrastructure, configurations, and deployment pipelines using Terraform, Terragrunt, Docker, AWS, and Argo CD.
Air-Gapped & Secure Deployments: Design, implement, and maintain air-gapped deployment methodologies to support strict security, compliance, and isolation requirements.
Observability & Reliability: Build, maintain, and optimize comprehensive monitoring, logging, and alerting systems to ensure high availability and visibility into our managed services.
Distributed Systems Troubleshooting: Apply deep expertise in troubleshooting distributed systems to quickly diagnose and resolve complex platform, infrastructure, and network issues.
Collaboration & Results: Work closely with peer development teams, security leaders, and cross-functional partners across multiple locations to deliver reliable, high-impact outcomes.
Security & Compliance: Implement and maintain enterprise security standards for the platform, ensuring full compliance with federal industry standards.
Knowledge Sharing & Documentation: Author clear technical documentation, participate in architectural reviews, and actively mentor team members to foster a culture of continuous learning.