Software Development Engineer - AI Tools

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.

About the Team

Welcome to the AI Tools team at Workday! We identify, deploy, and scale AI-powered tools that eliminate friction from the developer experience - and extend those capabilities to the broader organization as they mature. We build the AI platform layer that powers code generation, AI-assisted code review, agentic workflows, and enterprise-wide developer tooling. We own the MCP registry and gateway that connects Workday's developers to AI capabilities, and we build the technical guardrails that operationalize how AI is used responsibly across the company. If you want to do high-impact AI infrastructure work in enterprise software, we'd love to hear from you.

About the Role

The Workday AI Tools team is looking for a software engineer who's excited to build the infrastructure behind enterprise AI. You'll work across our MCP server ecosystem, LLM gateway, and developer-facing tooling - writing real production code that Workday engineers use every day. This is a high-impact, high-ownership role on a small team that moves quickly, so you'll have room to grow fast.

You'll also work directly with the engineers using these tools - answering questions in Slack, supporting onboarding, and feeding their feedback back into the platform.

In this role you will:

  - Build and maintain MCP servers, AI integrations, and developer tools that improve the daily workflow for Workday's engineering org

  - Write scripts and automation that streamline AI tool onboarding, configuration, and fleet management

  - Instrument services with logging and monitoring to keep our platform observable and reliable

  - Work with Security and compliance partners to implement policy requirements in our tooling

  - Participate in code review and help maintain a high standard for the team's codebase

  - Stay current on the AI tooling landscape and contribute ideas for what the team should build or adopt next

About You

Basic Qualifications

  - 3+ years of software engineering experience

  - Production experience building backend services or developer tooling in Python and/or TypeScript

  - Familiarity with LLM APIs and basic prompt engineering concepts

  - Working understanding of AI security and responsible AI principles - including awareness of prompt injection, data handling risks, and how to build AI integrations that respect policy and compliance boundaries

  - Genuine excitement about the cutting edge of AI - you stay current on new tools, models, and frameworks, and you're eager to bring what you're learning into your day-to-day work

  Other Qualifications

  - Understanding of AI agent architectures, including the ReAct pattern and how agents reason, plan, and use tools iteratively; hands-on experience building or experimenting with agents is a plus

  - Experience building MCP servers, skills, or tool-use integrations; comfort reading and contributing to the MCP ecosystem

  - Experience building or consuming REST APIs

  - Working knowledge of Docker and container-based deployments; experience with Kubernetes is a plus, and exposure to workflow orchestration or infrastructure-as-code tooling is welcome

  - Familiarity with DevOps practices and CI/CD systems

  - Understanding of authentication and authorization fundamentals (OAuth, SSO, API keys)

  - Comfort working in a cloud environment (AWS, GCP, or Azure)

  - Experience adding observability to services - logging, metrics, alerting

  - Comfort partnering directly with the engineers who use your tools - you're happy to answer questions, support adoption, and treat user feedback as input, not interruption

  - Strong written communication skills; able to document your work clearly for other developers

Workday Pay Transparency Statement

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

Our Approach to Flexible Work
 

With Flex Work, we’re combining the best of both worlds: in-person time and remote. Our approach enables our teams to deepen connections, maintain a strong community, and do their best work. We know that flexibility can take shape in many ways, so rather than a number of required days in-office each week, we simply spend at least half (50%) of our time each quarter in the office or in the field with our customers, prospects, and partners (depending on role). This means you'll have the freedom to create a flexible schedule that caters to your business, team, and personal needs, while being intentional to make the most of time spent together. Those in our remote "home office" roles also have the opportunity to come together in our offices for important moments that matter.

Pursuant to applicable Fair Chance law, Workday will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Workday is an Equal Opportunity Employer including individuals with disabilities and protected veterans.

At Workday, we are committed to providing an accessible and inclusive hiring experience where all candidates can fully demonstrate their skills. If you require assistance or an accommodation at any point, please email accommodations@workday.com.

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