Software Development Engineer III

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 The Agent Runtime team builds Workday’s secure execution platform for enterprise AI agents. We are creating the runtime substrate that enforces policy by architecture, not by prompt, with deterministic controls for data access, tool use, model routing, and auditability. Our charter spans runtime isolation, policy enforcement boundaries, model mediation, and observability at scale. We partner closely with other engineering and platform teams at Workday to deliver a multi-language, enterprise-grade agent runtime.

About the Role

As a Senior Software Development Engineer, you will design and build core runtime capabilities for policy-governed agent execution. You will own high-impact technical areas across sandbox execution, sidecar interfaces, enforcement flows, and production reliability.

In this role, you will:

• Design and implement core runtime services for secure, isolated agent execution.
• Build deterministic enforcement pathways for data, context, tool, and model boundaries.
• Define and evolve service interfaces and contracts across maincar and sidecar components.
• Improve performance, scalability, and resilience for high-concurrency workloads.
• Build deep observability into runtime behavior, policy decisions, and audit traces.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to integrate data prep, context assembly, tool gating, and model mediation.
• Participate in architecture reviews, incident response, and operational hardening.
• Mentor engineers and help raise engineering quality across the team.

As a Software Development Engineer III on the Agent Runtime team, you will implement key runtime components and services that power secure agent execution. You will contribute to design, coding, testing, and operations for systems that enforce policy and reliability guarantees in production.

In this role, you will:

• Build backend services and runtime components for cell lifecycle and execution control.
• Implement policy-aware data, context, tool, and model access pathways.
• Contribute to interface development between runtime components and partner systems.
• Write high-quality, testable code and participate in code and design reviews.
• Develop telemetry and logging capabilities for traceability and operational insight.
• Support production operations, performance tuning, and incident follow-through.
• Collaborate closely with senior engineers and partner teams on roadmap delivery., 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.

• 8+ years experience in software development engineering, architecting, building, and scaling robust and efficient software systems.
• 6+ years of software engineering experience building backend or platform systems.

Other Qualification

• Strong experience with distributed systems, APIs, and service-oriented architecture.
• Experience building secure systems with least-privilege patterns and policy controls.
• Proficiency in at least one systems or backend language (for example, Java, Go, Rust, or Python).
• Experience operating production services with strong reliability and observability practices.
• Demonstrated ownership of complex technical projects from design through production.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills in cross-functional environments., * 5+ years experience in software development engineering including designing, developing, and deploying software solutions.
• 3+ years of software engineering experience in backend or platform development.

Other Qualification

• Solid foundation in distributed systems fundamentals, APIs, and data modeling.
• Proficiency in one or more programming languages used for backend systems.
• Experience building and shipping production services with testing and monitoring.
• Working knowledge of security fundamentals, including authentication, authorization, and least-privilege concepts.
• Ability to debug complex issues and deliver reliable fixes in production environments.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills and effective team collaboration.

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