Vice President of Engineering, Data Cloud
About The Position
Workday is seeking a visionary, transformative, and execution-focused Vice President of Engineering to lead a world-class organization of 230–250+ systems and software engineers. The role leads the design, development, and execution of core platforms that power the Data Cloud business unit and supports Workday’s broader AI-driven growth strategy. As a strategic partner to the Senior Vice President & General Manager, the Vice President will lead an engineering transformation, modernizing the technology stack from legacy platforms toward an open, high-performance data ecosystem. The position calls for an outside-in industry perspective, operational urgency, constructive debate, and the ability to scale engineering capabilities while maintaining an empathetic, respectful, and inclusive culture. The Data Cloud engineering team builds Workday’s foundational data layer and works across systems engineering, database design, and strategic cloud partnerships. Its work includes evolving toward modern lakehouses, unified catalogs, and semantic layers, and developing an open, zero-copy data ecosystem for predictive modeling, real-time forecasting, and automated insights.
Requirements
- 12+ years of progressive software engineering experience.
- 5+ years of executive leadership experience managing large, multi-tiered engineering organizations in fast-paced environments; ideally, experience leading organizations of 150+ people.
- Proven success leading organizational transformations, increasing execution speed, and instilling urgency without sacrificing cultural health.
- Deep understanding of data technology evolution, including the transition from data warehouses to lakehouses, unified catalogs, and semantic or context layers.
- Strong familiarity with cloud-native architectures, distributed infrastructure, and query optimization.
- Awareness of external industry trends and willingness to challenge legacy practices through modern external solutions, open-source frameworks, or strategic integrations.
- Exceptional ability to navigate complex, matrixed environments and align engineering roadmaps with product management, corporate objectives, and executive leadership.
- Strong analytical rigor and ability to balance architectural ideals with business realities and execution speed.
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.
Nice To Haves
- Advanced technical degree (Master’s or Ph.D.).
Responsibilities
- Lead, scale, and inspire a distributed organization of 230–250+ systems and software engineers, and recruit top-tier talent.
- Oversee strategic migration and modernization of data infrastructure away from legacy platforms, accelerating adoption of industry-leading data cloud practices.
- Foster a high-velocity engineering culture with operational discipline, accelerated execution, constructive debate, and intellectual challenge while preserving an empathetic, respectful, and inclusive environment.
- Drive the end-to-end design, development, and debugging of software programs for core ecosystem enhancements and next-generation data products.
- Influence systems architecture, distributed databases, low-latency query engines, and hardware compatibility requirements for high-performance cloud infrastructure.
- Partner with the SVP & General Manager and product leadership to translate strategic vision into engineering blueprints, prioritizing open-source solutions, zero-copy technology such as Apache Iceberg, and AI-powered innovations.
- Collaborate with strategic external partners to design and implement integrated, high-performance, open data-sharing interfaces.
Benefits
- May be eligible for the Workday Bonus Plan or a role-specific commission/bonus.
- May be eligible for annual refresh stock grants.
- Comprehensive benefits are referenced, but specific benefits are not listed in the posting.
Stand Out From the Crowd
Upload your resume and get instant feedback on how well it matches this job.
What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Executive
