Senior Software Engineer(Distributed Systems)
About The Position
Workday is seeking a hands-on Software Development Engineer to build and operate a scalable data-product platform that enables engineering and analytics teams to create and govern production data products and marts. The platform spans dbt Core, Airflow, Trino, Apache Iceberg, Amazon S3 Tables, AWS Glue Catalog, access control, security, infrastructure as code, and CI/CD. The role combines data platform engineering with hands-on data-product development. The engineer will build reusable platform capabilities and create and maintain production dbt projects, data models, tests, semantic definitions, and data marts. The work includes writing performant analytical SQL and helping teams use visualization tools such as Apache Superset or Metabase, while addressing high-volume data, distributed query processing, data quality, reliability, governance, security, and developer experience. The Data Platform and Observability Engineering team builds governed platforms that help Workday teams turn data into reliable products. The team works with domain engineering, analytics, security, and infrastructure partners, using production SQL and dbt, lakehouse services, Terraform, and operational practices designed for high-volume, multi-team use. Workday's Flex Work approach combines in-person and remote work, with at least 50% of time each quarter spent in an office or in the field with customers, prospects, and partners, depending on the role.
Requirements
- 8 or more years of software engineering or data engineering experience.
- 5 or more years of experience building or operating production data platforms, lakehouse platforms, or distributed data systems.
- Hands-on experience building and maintaining production dbt Core projects.
- Strong production SQL and data-modeling experience.
- Experience with Airflow or another production workflow orchestration platform.
- Experience with Trino or another distributed SQL/query engine.
- Experience with a lakehouse technology such as Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake, or Hudi.
- Experience with cloud object storage and metadata/catalog systems.
- Experience with Python, Java, Go, Scala, or another production programming language.
- Experience with infrastructure as code such as Terraform.
- Experience working with production data access controls and security.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
- Hands-on experience building or operating multi-team data/lakehouse platforms.
- Experience with reusable platform patterns across project structure, orchestration, catalog, CI/CD, and environments.
- Strong production dbt experience, including project architecture, macros, packages, tests, and large model graphs.
- Experience with data modeling, marts, data quality, and semantic/metrics definitions across multiple domains.
- Strong Trino experience, including query execution and performance tuning.
- Hands-on Apache Iceberg experience, including partitioning, schema evolution, snapshots, and table maintenance.
- Experience with S3 Tables, Glue Catalog, or comparable lakehouse storage/catalog technologies.
- Strong understanding of query and data-layout optimization for high-volume workloads.
- Experience with Terraform, IAM, least privilege, encryption, CI/CD, monitoring, and production operations.
- Experience operating reliable, multi-tenant data platforms.
Nice To Haves
- A Master's degree in a related field.
- Experience with Apache Superset, Metabase, or similar BI platforms.
- Experience with Kafka, Spark, Flink, or similar distributed technologies.
Responsibilities
- Build and evolve platform capabilities across dbt, Airflow, Trino, Iceberg or S3 Tables, Glue Catalog, security, and infrastructure.
- Create and maintain production dbt projects end-to-end, including data models, transformations, tests, documentation, and semantic definitions.
- Design and operate Airflow workflows, including scheduling, dependencies, retries, backfills, and recovery.
- Develop and optimize high-volume analytical workloads on Trino and Iceberg, including partitioning, incremental processing, file layout, and query performance.
- Implement data quality, access control, and security using governed catalog and IAM patterns.
- Use Terraform and CI/CD to automate platform and data-product deployment.
- Contribute to the semantic and visualization layer for data-product consumption.
- Troubleshoot and operate the full stack, focusing on reliability, scalability, and safe production operations.
- Build reusable platform patterns that make it easier for teams to develop and operate data products.
- Support and mentor team members on data platform and data-product development.
Benefits
- May be eligible for the Workday Bonus Plan or a role-specific commission/bonus.
- May be eligible for annual refresh stock grants.
- Workday provides a comprehensive benefits package; specific benefits are not detailed in the posting.
- Flexible work scheduling under the Flex Work approach.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
