Principal Software Development Engineer - US Federal

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 We're the team that drives the product and strategy for Workday’s secret sauce - our technology platform that was designed from scratch for the cloud. We own the complete stack and tools that delivers and supports Workday products across private and public clouds (e.g. on-premise, AWS, GCP, Azure). We enable Workday's scale: ~50% of Fortune 500 companies, 8000+ customers, 55M+ Workers, ~365B Transactions! Workday is seeking a Principal Software Development Engineer (SDE) to be part of the Federal Cloud Platform Engineering team. This team supports direct and indirect contracts with the U.S. Federal Government which, due to federal government security requirements, mandates all Workday personnel working on the contracts be United States citizens (naturalized or native).

About the Role

This role will support one or more direct or indirect contracts with the U.S. Federal Government which, due to federal government security requirements, mandates that all Workday personnel working on the contracts be United States citizens (naturalized or native).

This role may require a security clearance at the TS/SCI w/CI Poly level. Applicants must have the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government issued security clearance. An active TS/SCI w/CI Poly is preferred.

May be required to be on site at client locations in the DC, MD, and VA (DMV) area.

As a Principal SDE on the Federal Cloud Platform Engineering team, you will focus on design, development, analysis, acquisition, installation, modification and support of operating systems, deployments, databases, utilities and network-related tools! You will conduct programming and support activities, such as new or revised program language codes, processing routines and report generations. You will also conduct programming tasks including program design, program coding, debugging and documentation to increase flexibility in deployments.

As part of our team, you will oversee and manage deployment of Workday technology stack on air-gapped cloud environments, develop proprietary tools, and deliver analytics to enable optimized deployments company-wide. This role is ideal for engineers with a holistic approach to cloud deployment, performance, and scalability who thrive on driving innovation and system-wide improvements.

Key Responsibilities:

• Manage and optimize Workday in the air-gapped U.S. AWS cloud regions and in doing so, form the nexus of the core team responsible for this mission as well as closely working with our commercial software engineering teams responsible for the overall Workday platform.

• Partner with the Workday Federal Cyber Defense team responsible for security operations, overall cybersecurity posture, governance, risk, and compliance, and platform security health.

• Develop and maintain deployment tools and analytics to support company-wide deployment flexibility and cost savings

• Collaborate across teams to ensure robust, scalable, and efficient solutions.

Skills:

• Cloud Platforms & Infrastructure: AWS, GCP, Azure, Terraform

• Configuration Management & Automation: Puppet, Ansible, Chef, Terraform, CloudFormation

• Containerization & Orchestration: Docker, Kubernetes, Helm

• CI/CD & DevOps Tools: Jenkins, Git, TeamCity, GitLab CI/CD

• Programming & Scripting Languages: Go (Golang), Python, Ruby, Java, Bash

• Database & Middleware: MySQL, PostgreSQL, Tomcat, ZooKeeper, Kafka

About You

Basic Qualifications:

• US CITIZENSHIP IS REQUIRED

• 8+ years in deploying large-scale, complex applications, with 3+ years in cloud-based deployments on AWS or GCP.

• 4+ years experience with automation tools and languages, including Ansible, Python, Go, Chef, and Puppet; proficient in CI/CD, build management and monitoring.

• 4+ years experience with networks, servers, storage, and operating systems in cloud environments; skilled in deployment orchestration and automation frameworks.

• Hands-on experience with infrastructure automation tools like Chef, Puppet, and Ansible.

Other Qualifications :

• Preferred DoD 8570/8140 compliant with at least IAT Level Il certification, including a current Computing Environment (CE) credential and one approved specialty certification (e.g., CompTIA CySA+, GICSP, CASP+)

• Extensive experience in developing orchestration and automation frameworks using Ansible and Jenkins, with cloud deployments

• Proven ability to introduce, integrate, and implement new technologies rapidly.

• Skilled in network analysis and troubleshooting, using tools like tcpdump to resolve network, firewall, and connectivity issues in collaboration with engineering teams.

• Proficient in Unix/Linux environments, with strong Python scripting expertise for automation and system management.

• Familiar with Agile/Scrum practices, including sprint planning and daily stand-ups using Jira; excellent communication skills and a collaborative approach in team environments.

• Extensive experience creating and operating automation frameworks for deployment orchestration in production environments.

• Over 5 years of experience building and maintaining pipelined automation for large-scale deployments across multiple build versions.

• Solid understanding of networks, protocols, servers, storage systems, and operating systems in cloud environments.

• Proficient in at least one core programming language (e.g., Ruby, Python, or Go) for deployment automation.

• Deep understanding of CI/CD processes, build management, monitoring, alerting, and centralized logging for cloud and on-prem environments.

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience in software engineering and automation.

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.VA.Reston

Primary Location Base Pay Range: $191,500 USD - $287,300 USD

Additional US Location(s) Base Pay Range: $173,300 USD - $309,600 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.

Are you being referred to one of our roles? If so, ask your connection at Workday about our Employee Referral process!

At Workday, we value our candidates’ privacy and data security. Workday will never ask candidates to apply to jobs through websites that are not Workday Careers.

Please be aware of sites that may ask for you to input your data in connection with a job posting that appears to be from Workday but is not.

In addition, Workday will never ask candidates to pay a recruiting fee, or pay for consulting or coaching services, in order to apply for a job at Workday.