Software Development Engineer III / Sr. Software Development Engineer - AI Platform

Workday•Boulder, CO

1d•$148,200 - $264,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Workday is seeking a Software Development Engineer III or Senior Software Development Engineer to join their AI Platform team, specifically the Agent Runtime team. This team is responsible for building Workday’s secure execution platform for enterprise AI agents. They are creating a runtime substrate that enforces policy by architecture, not by prompt, with deterministic controls for data access, tool use, model routing, and auditability. The role involves designing and building core runtime capabilities for policy-governed agent execution, owning high-impact technical areas across sandbox execution, sidecar interfaces, enforcement flows, and production reliability. The position also includes mentoring engineers and raising engineering quality. The Software Development Engineer III will implement key runtime components and services, contribute to design, coding, testing, and operations for systems that enforce policy and reliability guarantees in production. This includes building backend services, implementing policy-aware access pathways, developing telemetry, and supporting production operations.

Requirements

8+ years experience in software development engineering, architecting, building, and scaling robust and efficient software systems (for Sr. role).
6+ years of software engineering experience building backend or platform systems (for Sr. role).
5+ years experience in software development engineering including designing, developing, and deploying software solutions (for SDE III role).
3+ years of software engineering experience in backend or platform development (for SDE III role).
Strong experience with distributed systems, APIs, and service-oriented architecture.
Experience building secure systems with least-privilege patterns and policy controls.
Proficiency in at least one systems or backend language (for example, Java, Go, Rust, or Python).
Experience operating production services with strong reliability and observability practices.
Demonstrated ownership of complex technical projects from design through production.
Strong collaboration and communication skills in cross-functional environments.
Solid foundation in distributed systems fundamentals, APIs, and data modeling.
Proficiency in one or more programming languages used for backend systems.
Experience building and shipping production services with testing and monitoring.
Working knowledge of security fundamentals, including authentication, authorization, and least-privilege concepts.
Ability to debug complex issues and deliver reliable fixes in production environments.
Strong written and verbal communication skills and effective team collaboration.

Responsibilities

Design and implement core runtime services for secure, isolated agent execution.
Build deterministic enforcement pathways for data, context, tool, and model boundaries.
Define and evolve service interfaces and contracts across maincar and sidecar components.
Improve performance, scalability, and resilience for high-concurrency workloads.
Build deep observability into runtime behavior, policy decisions, and audit traces.
Partner with cross-functional teams to integrate data prep, context assembly, tool gating, and model mediation.
Participate in architecture reviews, incident response, and operational hardening.
Mentor engineers and help raise engineering quality across the team.
Build backend services and runtime components for cell lifecycle and execution control.
Implement policy-aware data, context, tool, and model access pathways.
Contribute to interface development between runtime components and partner systems.
Write high-quality, testable code and participate in code and design reviews.
Develop telemetry and logging capabilities for traceability and operational insight.
Support production operations, performance tuning, and incident follow-through.
Collaborate closely with senior engineers and partner teams on roadmap delivery.