VP Developer Experience

Workday • Pleasanton, CA

23h • $308,000 - $462,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

The VP Developer Experience leads a geographically dispersed team serving as the central coordination hub for improving the end-to-end developer journey across Workday. This leadership role drives organizational transformation within the broader engineering organization and builds the Developer Experience function, defining its role, scope, and value proposition. The position develops and executes a company-wide DevEx strategy aligned with business objectives, coordinates existing specialized teams, identifies gaps, and improves the developer experience from onboarding through production deployment.

The role focuses on adapting software development life cycle processes for an AI-first environment, assessing the effects of AI tools on organizational structures and processes, and integrating AI development tools, automation, and process optimization. It establishes measurement frameworks, standards, collaboration processes, and feedback systems to support continuous improvement and measurable outcomes such as increased developer velocity, faster onboarding, and higher satisfaction.

The VP builds and develops a DevEx team and partners with engineering leadership, product and platform teams, and other stakeholders. Workday’s Flex Work approach combines in-person and remote work, with teams spending at least 50% of their time each quarter in the office or in the field with customers, prospects, and partners, depending on role. Remote home-office employees may also come together in offices for important moments.

Requirements

• 10 or more years of experience in software development, developer advocacy, or a similar technical leadership role, with a significant portion focused on enterprise SaaS platforms.
• 5 or more years in a leadership or management capacity.
• Deep understanding of SDK development and a broad range of programming languages and development tools.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms and CI/CD practices.
• Genuine passion for developers, empathy for their needs and challenges, and proven ability to think like a developer.
• Ability to develop and execute a long-term developer experience vision aligned with business objectives.
• Exceptional written, verbal, and presentation skills, including the ability to explain complex technical concepts to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Proven ability to build, mentor, and motivate high-performing technical teams.
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams.
• Experience using data and metrics to measure success and guide decisions.

Nice To Haves

• Experience building or significantly contributing to a successful developer platform for an enterprise SaaS product.
• Active participation in developer communities and open-source projects.
• Advanced degree in Computer Science or a related field.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute a holistic developer experience roadmap aligned with business objectives and spanning organizational boundaries.
• Build the Developer Experience function from the ground up, defining its role, scope, and value proposition.
• Lead the adoption of AI development tools and intelligent automation, and optimize end-to-end processes to reduce friction.
• Implement measurement frameworks and analytics to assess and improve developer experience health.
• Assess existing DevEx initiatives across application development, design systems, platform development, CI/CD pipelines, environments, and specialized teams.
• Create cross-functional collaboration processes to align teams and eliminate duplicated efforts.
• Analyze the developer journey from onboarding to production deployment and prioritize high-impact improvement opportunities.
• Build partnerships with engineering leadership, product teams, platform teams, and other stakeholders.
• Recruit, hire, develop, mentor, and motivate a team of DevEx professionals, including analysts, coordinators, and developer advocates.
• Establish sustainable processes for gap analysis, project coordination, and continuous improvement.
• Design and deploy systems for collecting, analyzing, and acting on developer feedback.
• Lead initiatives to improve developer velocity, reduce onboarding time, and increase satisfaction scores.
• Establish organization-wide standards for developer tooling, documentation, and processes.
• Develop and maintain best-practice guidelines for developer experience improvements.
• Promote a coherent user experience across development tools and platforms.
• Foster a culture of ongoing optimization and innovation in developer experience.
• Assess the impact of AI tooling across the SDLC on organizational structure, including single points of contact, organizational layers, and token budgets.
• Adapt SDLC processes to succeed in an AI-first environment.

Benefits

• May be eligible for the Workday Bonus Plan or a role-specific commission/bonus.
• May be eligible for annual refresh stock grants.
• Workday offers a comprehensive benefits package; specific benefits are not detailed in the posting.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive
• Education Level: No Education Listed