Principal, Software Engineer (Distributed Systems)

About the role

Join the AI Agent Engineering team, where we're pioneering cutting-edge HR & Finance AI Agents that deeply integrate within the Workday suite. Be part of an innovative, agile force architecting intelligent agents that will revolutionize our customers' workday. We are seeking an expert AI Agent Principal Engineer who will serve as a lead engineer for a multi-functional team building ground-breaking AI agents for HR & Finance. This role is critical in defining the tooling strategy, staying ahead of industry trends, and ensuring our AI solutions seamlessly integrate deeply within the Workday stack. You will be responsible for evaluating and selecting AI frameworks, orchestrating agent workflows, and using LLMs, automation frameworks, and enterprise AI technologies to design and develop scalable, reliable and trusted AI agents for both the HR and Finance. You will lead a team of engineers to quickly iterate on strategic agentic solutions for HR and Finance.

Responsibilities

• Lead a high performing team of innovative engineers to deliver AI-powered agents that integrate deeply into HR and Financial workflows, accelerating intelligent decision making.
• Understanding of AI Lifecycle: Extensive knowledge of the AI system lifecycle, including problem definition, data acquisition, model training, system integration, and validation
• Evaluate, select, and integrate AI tools, frameworks, and platforms to ensure scalability, efficiency, and compliance
• Stay up to date with advancements in AI, LLMs, RAG, autonomous agents and orchestration frameworks to drive innovation
• Work with product, engineering, and data science teams to innovate and implement AI-based automation solutions that enhance HR and financial operations.
• Collaborate with external AI vendors, cloud providers, and open-source communities to bring the best-in-class technologies into our AI stack.
• Establish monitoring, feedback loops, and continuous learning mechanisms to improve agent performance over time.
• Committed to revolutionizing the industry with AI technologies in HCM and Financial systems.
• Building responsible AI into our Agent Factory pipeline supporting various systems.
• About You

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience with product engineering leading the development and delivery of highly available cloud products
• 5+ years proven experience in AI, machine learning, or intelligent automation, with a focus on enterprise applications.
• 2+ years experience with LLMs, AI agents, and orchestration frameworks (e.g. LangGraph)
• 5+ years experience with Python, cloud AI services (AWS, Azure, GCP), and AI model deployment.
• Other Qualifications
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in a relevant field, such as Computer Science, Mathematics, or Engineering.
• Experience with enterprise-grade AI architectures, API integration, and large-scale automation.
• Hands-on experience with vector databases, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and fine-tuning LLMs.
• Proven track record to tackle sophisticated business challenges by translating them into innovative, AI-powered solutions that drive measurable results
• Experience with data privacy, security, and compliance for AI in enterprise environments
• Experience developing and deploying machine learning solutions using large-scale datasets, including specification design, data collection and labeling, model development, validation, deployment, and ongoing monitoring.
• Experience with fine-tuning AI models including identifying and curating datasets as well as experimenting with models for iterative improvement
• 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 compensa

Additional Information

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.

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Company Intel

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