Mid/Senior Software Engineer - Developer Platform (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

Your work matters here. At Workday Government, we focus on outcomes that serve a larger mission. Our work supports U.S. federal agencies as they modernize and transform the full employee lifecycle experience and finance operations—so they can operate with greater clarity, accountability, and trust. As a Fortune 500 company and a proven enterprise cloud platform, Workday brings modern technology, responsible AI, and secure infrastructure to some of the most complex environments in the world. The work isn’t theoretical. It’s operational. It’s high-impact. And it demands rigor, integrity, and long-term thinking.
The Developer Platform Observability team is dedicated to building the tools and infrastructure that power visibility, performance, and reliability across Workday’s Developer Platform. If you are energized by building infrastructure that makes complex systems understandable and gives developers confidence in what they ship, this is the team for you.
If you’re looking to apply your experience to meaningful, mission-driven work—alongside colleagues who take pride in building things that last—you’ll find that opportunity at Workday

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).

As a Software Engineer on the Developer Platform Observability team, you will design and deliver scalable, secure, and developer-friendly solutions that support everything from logs and metrics to system health and diagnostics. This is a hands-on engineering position where code quality, thoughtful design, and tight-knit collaboration are key to success.

This role serves as a key technical liaison between the Developer Platform and the Workday Government organization. You will have the unique opportunity to influence our core observability strategy while ensuring our platform meets the rigorous demands of our Federal customers.

What You Will Do:

• Develop and maintain backend services and APIs that support customer observability and logging systems.

• Apply algorithmic thinking and object-oriented design to create maintainable and performant solutions.

• Write comprehensive automated tests and participate in code reviews to ensure quality and resiliency.

• Identify and eliminate manual operational work by automating tasks and improving the self-service capabilities of our deployment platform.

• Author and maintain clear, usable technical documentation for internal users and team members.

• Collaborate with other specialists across the organization to understand use cases and deliver solutions that scale.

• Support compliant deployments of services and new metrics backend architecture in federal environments, including AGR. 

• Participate in team discussions and design sessions with candid communication and a collaborative mindset.

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).

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

About You

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.

The Ideal Candidate:

• Strong software development experience, with fluency in modern backend languages and design principles.

• Proficiency in API development, code testing, and object-oriented programming.

• A knack for simplifying complex technical problems into scalable and practical implementations.

• Strong team collaboration and communication skills, with the ability to work across functions and roles.

• A commitment to trust building, accountability, and adaptability in a fast-moving environment.

• Curiosity and creativity in solving problems and improving developer experience.

Basic Qualifications (Mid Level Software Engineer)

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, including ownership of backend services in production.

• 3+ years of hands-on experience with microservice or event-driven architectures for large-scale distributed systems

• 3+ years of experience in object-oriented programming with Java or a similar language, applying design patterns to build maintainable services.

• Experience delivering backend services that expose APIs used by other teams or external clients, including responsibility for basic observability (logging, metrics, and alerting).

• Bachelor’s degree or higher, in Computer Science/Engineering or related technical field.

Basic Qualifications (Senior Software Engineer)

• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, including ownership and end-to-end delivery of backend services in production.

• 5+ years of hands-on experience designing and operating microservice or event-driven architectures for large-scale distributed systems.

• 5+ years of experience in object-oriented programming with Java or a similar language, applying design patterns to build maintainable, performant services at scale.

• Demonstrated experience leading the design and delivery of backend services that expose APIs used by other teams or external clients, including end-to-end responsibility for observability (logging, metrics, and alerting).

• Experience influencing technical direction across teams and mentoring other engineers through code reviews, design reviews, and technical guidance.

• Bachelor's degree or higher, in Computer Science/Engineering or related technical field.

Other Qualifications

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

• Bachelor’s degree or higher, in Computer Science/Engineering or related technical field.

• Strong software development skills, with fluency in modern backend languages and design principles, and a track record of writing clear, maintainable code.

• Experience with observability technologies such as Grafana Loki or Prometheus, Elasticsearch, Beats, Logstash, or OpenTelemetry, and the ability to use these tools to make complex systems understandable. 

• Experience with cloud-native architectures and tooling (for example Docker, Kubernetes, Istio, Helm, or Envoy), including deploying and operating services in these environments.

• Experience with AWS data and compute services such as Lambda, S3, Kinesis, Iceberg, Athena, or Glue, and how they fit into an observability or logging pipeline.

• Experience building backend services using technologies such as Java, Kotlin, Golang, and RESTful APIs.

• Experience with Infrastructure as Code tools (for example CloudFormation or Terraform) to define and manage infrastructure in a repeatable way.

• Ability to simplify complex technical problems into scalable, practical implementations that balance reliability, performance, and developer experience.

• Strong collaboration and communication skills, with experience working across functions and roles and contributing constructively in design discussions and reviews.

• Demonstrated commitment to automated testing and code quality, including writing comprehensive tests to ensure the resilience of critical services.

• Curiosity and creativity in solving problems and improving developer experience, with a mindset of reducing manual operational work through automation and self-service tools.

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: $163,800 USD - $245,800 USD

 

Additional US Location(s) Base Pay Range: $148,200 USD - $264,000 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 [email protected].

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