Sr Manager, AI Engineering
Workday is hiring a Sr Manager, AI Engineering. It pays $255k-$383k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Level.
AI in this role
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
It's fun to work in a company where people truly believe in what they're doing. At Workday, we're committed to bringing passion and customer focus to the business of enterprise applications. We work hard, and we're serious about what we do. But we like to have a good time, too. In fact, we run our company with that principle in mind every day: One of our core values is fun.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.
About the Role
We are seeking a highly skilled and visionary Senior Manager or Director of AI Agent Engineering to lead the development of AI agents for our HR and Finance business. You will be responsible for building and mentoring a high-performing engineering team, driving technical excellence and ensuring the delivery of robust, scalable and secure AI agent solutions that seamlessly integrate with our Workday ecosystem and deliver outstanding experiences for our customers.
Responsibilities:
- Build, lead, and mentor a team of exceptional AI agent engineers.
- Ensure timely project delivery to exceptional standards of our AI agents.
- Work closely with product managers, data scientists and other stakeholders to translate business requirements into technical solutions
- Collaborate with architects and principal engineers to ensure seamless integration with the Workday platform
- Foster a culture of innovation, collaboration and continuous improvement and learning.
- Evaluate and integrate cutting-edge AI technologies, including LLMs, RAG, and orchestration frameworks (e.g., LangGraph)
- Collaborate with external vendors and open-source communities to leverage best-in-class AI technologies
- Ensure all AI solutions adhere to data privacy, security, and compliance standards
- Implement robust testing, monitoring and feedback loops to ensure agent performance and reliability
- Ensure the scalability, reliability, and security of AI agent solutions within the Workday environment.
About You
Basic Qualifications:
- 5+ years of experience in software engineering leadership, with a strong focus on AI/ML and cloud-based systems.
- 5+ years of experience with design and development for mission critical systems at scale
Other Qualifications:
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
- Proven ability to seek out and hire the highest performing professionals to build cutting edge products built on AI
- Deep understanding of LLMs, AI agents, RAG, and orchestration frameworks.
- Experience with enterprise-grade AI architectures, API integration, and large-scale automation.
- Strong problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills.
- Experience with the Workday platform is a strong plus.
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
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.
Workday is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals during our application process, in order to perform one or more essential functions of their job, as well as regarding the use of AI tools for employment decision-making to any degree. Please see below for more details including how to request an accommodation as a qualified veteran, due to a disability or for religious reasons, or as otherwise provided under applicable law.
Workday prohibits taking adverse action against any candidate or employee for reporting a possible violation of this policy, requesting one or more work accommodations, exercising a privacy right, or cooperating in an investigation in accordance with applicable law. Any employee who retaliates against a candidate or employee for doing so may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment, to the fullest extent allowable under applicable law.
If you require a reasonable accommodation, you may email accommodations@workday.com, as far in advance as possible.
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.
How we rate this
Sr Manager, AI Engineering at Workday rates 14 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Little AI (AI Level 1 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Little AI. AI is not part of the work.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Open the description and count.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Also common in AI engineer jobs at this level
Pay
- This job starts at
- $255k
- Typical AI engineer job
- $181k
This posting starts 41% above the typical AI engineer job. See AI engineer jobs
Questions you could be asked
- How would you design a retrieval step so the model answers from real data instead of guessing?
- How do you decide when an AI agent can act on its own versus asking for approval first?
- What are the limits of LangGraph that you've run into, and how did you work around them?
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: RAG, AI agents, and LangGraph. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
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