Workday Solutions Architect - Talent and AI

Gilead Sciences • Foster City, CA

2d • $146,540 - $189,640 • Hybrid

About The Position

At Gilead, we are dedicated to creating a healthier world for all people. For over 35 years, we have been at the forefront of developing life-changing therapies for diseases such as HIV, viral hepatitis, COVID-19, and cancer, ensuring global access to these treatments. Our mission is driven by collaboration, determination, and a relentless pursuit of making a difference. Every member of the Gilead team plays a crucial role in discovering and developing groundbreaking scientific innovations. Our employees are our most valuable asset as we strive to achieve our ambitious goals. We are seeking passionate and driven individuals ready to make a significant impact.

We believe that every employee deserves an exceptional leader. People Leaders are fundamental to the employee experience at Gilead and Kite. As a people leader, you will be instrumental in shaping our culture and fostering an inclusive environment where every employee feels empowered, developed, and supported in achieving their aspirations. Join Gilead and help us create what's possible, together.

Gilead is looking for a Workday Solutions Architect with a focus on Talent, Performance, Skills, and AI. This role is responsible for the design, integrity, implementation, and ongoing evolution of Workday capabilities that support our talent strategy and enhance the employee experience. The scope encompasses Performance, Talent & Succession, Skills, Career Development, Learning, Recruiting, and related AI-enabled experiences and agents across HR.

As the Workday Solutions Architect, you will define and govern the end-to-end solution architecture for Workday Talent, Performance & AI. This ensures seamless integration with Core HCM, security protocols, reporting structures, integrations, data management, and downstream platforms. You will translate complex business and talent requirements into scalable designs, lead the implementation of Skills, and establish an enterprise-wide approach for implementing and governing AI agents. These agents must be secure, explainable, auditable, and grounded in reliable Workday data and business processes.

This senior individual contributor role requires deep hands-on Workday expertise combined with strategic influence, offering platform-wide impact. The position is based in Foster City, CA, with a hybrid office schedule (Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays).

Requirements

• 8+ Years with BS/BA OR 6+ Years with MS/MA or MBA
• 8+ years of hands-on Workday experience, including architecture, configuration, design, implementation, and support across multiple HCM modules.
• Deep expertise in Workday Talent and Performance, including goals, feedback, reviews, calibration, talent and succession, career and development, and their connections to Recruiting, Learning, Core HCM, reporting, and security.
• Demonstrated experience leading a Workday Skills implementation or enterprise skills transformation, including taxonomy, governance, job and worker profiles, data quality, inferred skills, reporting, integrations, adoption, and operating model.
• Experience implementing Workday AI capabilities or enterprise AI agents, including self-service and domain agents for recruiting, payroll, job architecture, talent management, HR service delivery, or comparable use cases.
• Strong knowledge of agentic solution design, including use-case selection, conversational design, workflow orchestration, human-in-the-loop controls, security and permissions, responsible AI, testing, monitoring, and auditability.
• Proven experience leading solution design for new module implementations, redesigns, integrations, large-scale enhancements, and global deployments.
• Demonstrated ability to define architectural decisions and trade-offs, troubleshoot complex functional and technical issues, and translate business needs into clear, scalable designs.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and influencing skills, with the ability to explain technical and AI concepts to nontechnical stakeholders and lead cross-functional workshops.
• Ability to manage multiple initiatives with competing priorities in a fast-paced, global environment.
• Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems, Human Resources, Business, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the Workday solution architecture for Performance, Talent & Succession, Skills, Career Development, Learning, and Recruiting, establishing reusable standards and guardrails for scalability, security, and maintainability.
• Define the target architecture and roadmap for Skills implementation, including skills taxonomy and governance, worker and job-profile skills, data quality, proficiency, inferred skills, talent experiences, reporting, integrations, and adoption.
• Design talent and performance experiences that connect goals, feedback, reviews, calibration, succession, development, internal mobility, learning, recruiting, and skills-based decision-making.
• Establish the enterprise architecture and governance model for Workday AI and agentic solutions, including human oversight, role-based access, privacy, responsible AI controls, testing, monitoring, auditability, and release management.
• Shape and lead the implementation of the Workday Self-Service Agent and other AI agents spanning recruiting, payroll, job architecture, talent management, HR service delivery, and additional prioritized use cases.
• Lead end-to-end discovery and business process design workshops for Talent, Performance, Skills, and AI-enabled experiences, defining future-state processes, requirements, outcomes, and solution approaches.
• Translate business requirements into functional, technical, data, integration, security, and agent interaction designs, clearly articulating trade-offs and architectural implications.
• Lead architectural impact assessments for Workday semiannual releases, including Talent, Performance, Skills, and AI capabilities, and guide regression testing, readiness, adoption, and post-release optimization.
• Evaluate new Workday innovations and agent capabilities, develop pilots and value cases, and recommend a sequenced roadmap based on business outcomes, risk, feasibility, user experience, and total cost of ownership.
• Define operational metrics for skills adoption and agent performance, including accuracy, completion, escalation, cycle-time reduction, employee experience, risk, and realized business value.
• Act as a senior individual contributor with platform-wide influence, guiding functional and technical team members on Workday design and best practices.
• Provide training, architectural direction, and design oversight to ensure consistent, high-quality Workday solutions.
• Partner effectively with business stakeholders, IT peers, and vendors to drive successful outcomes across multiple concurrent initiatives.

Benefits

• company-sponsored medical, dental, vision, and life insurance plans
• discretionary annual bonus
• discretionary stock-based long-term incentives
• paid time off

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior