Principal Cybersecurity Data Engineer

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 are a newly formed, forward-looking Cybersecurity Data Engineering & Platform Team driving the future of our enterprise defense strategy. Our mission is to build a next-generation, centralized data lakehouse that unifies all security telemetry into a single, high-performance ecosystem. Operating across two specialized verticals—Data Logistics (ingestion, enrichment, and semantic layers) and Data Platform (foundational infrastructure, security architecture, and AI enablement)—we are designing a scalable, cloud-native foundation from the ground up. By combining cutting-edge data architecture with advanced analytics, we empower our threat hunters, data scientists, and incident responders with the real-time, trusted intelligence needed to protect the enterprise at scale.

About the Role

As the Principal Cybersecurity Data Engineer, you will be the technical catalyst driving our transformation from a legacy data collection model into a mature, enterprise-grade Cybersecurity Data Organization. Sitting at the critical intersection of advanced data engineering and security operations, you will lead the Data Logistics vertical to architect the pipelines that power our next-generation security data lakehouse.

We are currently undertaking a massive modernization effort—migrating off legacy infrastructure and scaling our ingestion from a handful of data sources to over 300+ complex, high-velocity security feeds. We need a dual-domain expert to turbocharge this transformation, build missing foundational capabilities from the ground up, and mentor a globally distributed team on modern data engineering standards.

In this role, you aren’t just moving data; you are engineering the real-time, high-fidelity intelligence nervous system that powers our enterprise defense, threat hunting, and AI-enabled detection strategies.

What You Will Drive

• Enterprise-Scale Architecture: Design and implement the ingestion, enrichment, and semantic layers for our centralized data lakehouse, ensuring pipelines can handle the extreme velocity and scale required for real-time cyber defense.

• Massive Pipeline Scaling: Redesign our data onboarding and pipeline architecture to exponentially scale our capabilities, successfully shunting thousands of highly complex security telemetry sources from legacy systems (Splunk) into the modern lakehouse.

• Data Observability & Reliability: Architect and deploy robust data observability, quality, and reliability frameworks from scratch. You will ensure downstream users (SIRT, Detection Engineering) have absolute trust in the fidelity of their telemetry.

• Technical Leadership & Transformation: Serve as the technical anchor for the Data Logistics team. You will fill a critical operational void, mentoring engineers, instilling modern coding and automation practices, and steering the team away from legacy tech-debt mentalities.

• AI & Advanced Analytics Enablement: Structure and model complex security data to directly enable advanced analytics, data science initiatives, and the deployment of our upcoming AI-driven security platforms.

What Makes You Successful Here

You are a rare hybrid: a deeply experienced enterprise data engineer who understands the unique mandates of cybersecurity operations. You know that security telemetry requires strict data isolation, chain-of-custody, and ultra-low latency. You thrive in ambiguous, transformative environments and are equally comfortable architecting high-level strategy as you are diving into the code to untangle complex data models.

About You

You are a seasoned engineering leader who speaks both the language of scalable data architectures and the language of cyber defense. You have a builder’s mentality, a deep intolerance for technical debt, and a proven track record of designing data ecosystems that can handle the extreme scale and velocity of modern threat telemetry. You aren't just looking to write pipelines; you are looking to architect a foundational platform, write the technical standards, and elevate the engineering maturity of the entire team.

• You are a Dual-Domain Architect: You possess deep enterprise data engineering experience combined with a strong understanding of cybersecurity operations. You understand the nuances of security telemetry (EDR, network logs, threat intel) and the specific challenges of migrating away from legacy SIEMs like Splunk to a modernized architecture.

• You are a Master of Modern Data Stacks: You have expert-level, hands-on experience designing and building cloud-native data lakehouses (e.g., Databricks, Snowflake, or native GCP/AWS data stacks). You know how to build semantic layers and optimize storage/compute for both real-time streaming and complex historical analytics.

• You Code for Scale: You are highly proficient in programming languages used for data engineering (Python, SQL, Scala, or Go) and have deep experience with distributed data processing and orchestration tools (e.g., Apache Spark, Kafka, Airflow, dbt). Scaling ingestion to thousands of high-velocity sources is a technical challenge you have successfully navigated before.

• You are Obsessed with Reliability: You know that in cybersecurity, bad data means missed threats. You have hands-on experience designing and implementing strict data observability, automated quality checks, and reliability frameworks from scratch. You treat data infrastructure like code, relying heavily on CI/CD pipelines and version control.

• You are a Transformation Catalyst & Mentor: You thrive in modernization environments. You are highly capable of getting your hands on the keyboard to untangle complex engineering problems, but your true value lies in your ability to mentor engineers, instill modern software engineering practices, and guide the team through a massive technological and cultural shift.

Workday Pay Transparency Statement (For EU Locations Only)

Listed below is the base salary range applicable to this position. Workday pay ranges (and the precise pay offered to the successful candidate) are based on a number of objective criteria such as relevant experience and skills, and educational qualifications, level of responsibility, demands of the role, work location and business need. 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 awarded by Workday Inc. For more information regarding Workday’s comprehensive benefits, please click here.

Primary Location Base Pay Range: €104,000 EUR - €156,000 EUR Ireland

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.