Software Development Engineer at Workday in USA, CA, Pleasanton

Job description

• Your work days are brighter here.
• We’re obsessed with making hard work pay off, for our people, our customers, and the world around us. As a Fortune 500 company and a leading AI platform for managing people, money, and agents, we’re shaping the future of work so teams can reach their potential and focus on what matters most. The minute you join, you’ll feel it.
• Not just in the products we build, but in how we show up for each other. Our culture is rooted in integrity, empathy, and shared enthusiasm. We’re in this together, tackling big challenges with bold ideas and genuine care. We look for curious minds and courageous collaborators who bring sun-drenched optimism and drive.
• Whether you're building smarter solutions, supporting customers, or creating a space where everyone belongs, you’ll do meaningful work with Workmates who’ve got your back. In return, we’ll give you the trust to take risks, the tools to grow, the skills to develop and the support of a company invested in you for the long haul.
• So, if you want to inspire a brighter work day for everyone, including yourself, you’ve found a match in Workday, and we hope to be a match for you too.
• As an Engineer on the UI and Tooling Server team, you will design, build, and operate the backend services at the core of Workday's Developer Platform. You will work primarily across a JVM stack Java and Kotlin, Spring Boot running on AWS and Kubernetes owning features end to end — from API contract, to modern agentic user interface like A2UI, to production health.
• Design and deliver backend microservices and developer-facing UI features end to end, taking ownership from technical design through production rollout and ongoing operational health.
• Build and evolve well-governed public and internal APIs, applying versioning, backward compatibility, and security standards to surfaces that external developers depend on.
• Operate what you build in a cloud-native environment — instrumenting services with metrics, logging, and SLO-based alerting, and participating in on-call to keep a multi-cluster fleet healthy.
• Integrate AI and agentic capabilities into the platform, including large language model integrations, real-time streaming interfaces, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) based tooling.
• Use AI-augmented development tools as a daily part of your workflow, and help establish team practices for directing, reviewing, and validating agent-generated code.
• Partner with product managers, designers, and engineers across teams to break ambiguous requirements into well-scoped, executable work, and clearly articulate technical tradeoffs to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Raise the technical bar through code review, design feedback, pairing, and strong test automation, and write clear technical documentation for the features you own.

Responsibilities

• Design and deliver backend microservices and developer-facing UI features end to end, taking ownership from technical design through production rollout and ongoing operational health.
• Build and evolve well-governed public and internal APIs, applying versioning, backward compatibility, and security standards to surfaces that external developers depend on.
• Operate what you build in a cloud-native environment — instrumenting services with metrics, logging, and SLO-based alerting, and participating in on-call to keep a multi-cluster fleet healthy.
• Integrate AI and agentic capabilities into the platform, including large language model integrations, real-time streaming interfaces, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) based tooling.
• Use AI-augmented development tools as a daily part of your workflow, and help establish team practices for directing, reviewing, and validating agent-generated code.
• Partner with product managers, designers, and engineers across teams to break ambiguous requirements into well-scoped, executable work, and clearly articulate technical tradeoffs to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Raise the technical bar through code review, design feedback, pairing, and strong test automation, and write clear technical documentation for the features you own.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of software engineering with a strong focus on backend microservice architectures and distributed systems.
• Programming: Java or Kotlin, with production Spring Boot experience. Go is a plus.
• Cloud platforms: AWS (preferred), GCP, or Azure.
• Containerization and orchestration: Docker and Kubernetes.
• 3+ years operating production services you own — including observability (metrics, logging, tracing), SLO-based alerting, and on-call.
• Hands-on experience with AI-augmented development (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot), including the ability to direct, review, and validate agent-generated code.
• Deep backend proficiency in Java or Kotlin, with strong command of design patterns, distributed systems, and high-availability architecture.
• A reliability mindset: you have designed for failure, capacity, and graceful degradation on services that carry real production traffic.
• Expert API development and contract management, including versioning, backward compatibility, and familiarity with modern protocols (e.g., MCP) to support a spec-driven development approach.
• Service ownership: end-to-end accountability for operational health, test automation, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud-native observability.
• Hands-on experience integrating AI capabilities into software products, not only using AI tools to write code.
• 1+ years of experience building modern frontend UIs (e.g., React, Angular, or Vue), sufficient to own a feature from API through UI.
• Strong collaborator and communicator — able to partner with PMs, designers, and engineers to break work down and clearly articulate technical tradeoffs to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience with developer platforms, DevTools, language servers, or other core engineering platforms is a plus.

Skills

Required

• Java or Kotlin
• Spring Boot
• AWS (preferred), GCP, or Azure
• Docker and Kubernetes
• SLO-based alerting
• On-call

Preferred

• Go
• React, Angular, or Vue
• MCP (Model Context Protocol)
• CI/CD pipelines
• Test automation

Benefits

• The annualized base salary ranges for the primary location and any additional locations are listed below. Workday pay ranges vary based on work location. As a part of the total compensation package, this role may be eligible for the Workday Bonus Plan or a role-specific commission/bonus, as well as annual refresh stock grants. Recruiters can share more detail during the hiring process. Each candidate’s compensation offer will be based on multiple factors including, but not limited to, geography, experience, skills, job duties, and business need, among other things. For more information regarding Workday’s comprehensive benefits, please click here.
• Primary Location: USA.CA.Pleasanton
• Primary Location Base Pay Range: $148,000 USD - $222,000 USD
• Additional US Location(s) Base Pay Range: $123,900 USD - $222,000 USD