Principal API Architect, Product Engineering – AgentReady APIs & Data

Your work days are brighter here.

Were 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 were shaping the future of work so teams can reach their potential and focus on what matters most. The minute you join youll 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. Were 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 youre building smarter solutions supporting customers or creating a space where everyone belongs youll do meaningful work with Workmates whove got your return well 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 youve found a match in Workday and we hope to be a match for you too.

About the Team

Product Engineering builds the endtoend product experiences that Workday customers use. Many of these experiences are now powered by agents and AI which depend on a strong API foundation.

This role sits in Product Engineering but operates across product pillars. You will work closely with Product Engineering teams as well as partner organizations. You will shape the API foundation architecture and operating model that makes it easy for Product Engineering to build agentready highquality APIs.

About the Role

We are seeking a Principal-level API Architect in Product Engineering to lead our API strategy for agentic product-centric and integration-heavy scenarios. You will own the API architecture vision for Product Engineering set standards across API design and product integration patterns and partner with engineering and product leaders to make them real.

The ideal candidate has deep hands-on experience designing and building products end to end from product and domain modeling through backend implementation API design and production operations. They should understand how product functionality is translated into scalable services and well-modeled API endpoints and they should be comfortable working across large-scale systems using strong object-oriented modeling and software design principles.

In this role you will:

• Define and evolve the API architecture standards and review processes that guide how Product Engineering teams design and deliver APIs.

• Partner with product and platform leaders to shape the operating model including API champions across product pillars and a clear intake/prioritization path for API needs.

• Help Product Engineering teams think through product design domain modeling service boundaries and API endpoints that support end-to-end product functionality.

• Ensure APIs are designed not only as technical interfaces but as durable product contracts that reflect clear product capabilities domain concepts and customer use cases.

What youll do

• Define the API architecture and governance model for Product Engineering spanning REST GraphQL SOAP and emerging integration models used by Workday agents and products.

• Partner with product and engineering teams to design product capabilities end to end including domain models service boundaries object models API endpoints and integration flows.

• Translate product requirements and user workflows into scalable backend services and well-structured API contracts.

• Establish and maintain API standards:

  • OpenAPI contract guidelines review and approval process.

  • Resource modeling naming and pagination conventions.

  • Authentication/authorization and multitenant patterns.

  • Error handling retry semantics and idempotency guidelines.

  • Versioning and deprecation policies.

• Partner with Product Engineering leaders and API champions in each product area to:

  • Shape their API roadmaps.

  • Identify gaps or duplication.

  • Drive convergence on shared patterns and building blocks.

• Define reference architectures and patterns for:

  • Agentready APIs and orchestration patterns used by the Agent Factory.

  • Datacentric APIs including how Product Engineering safely exposes data via Data Cloud / SQL projections.

  • Latency and observability standards across the endtoend request path.

• Lead critical crossteam API design reviews and act as the tiebreaker on contentious or highimpact design decisions.

• Work closely with platform partners to ensure Product Engineerings needs are represented and that platform capabilities are consistently applied.

• Shape and help run a single transparent intake and prioritization process for key Product Engineering API investments.

• Evaluate build/borrow/buy options for tools that help Product Engineering design test and operate APIs (including contract testing catalogs MCP/Data Cloud connectors and developer tooling).

• Mentor senior engineers and managers on API architecture distributed systems and integration best practices; build communities of practice across Product Engineering.

• Communicate the API vision and status to senior stakeholders and help influence product and resourcing decisions.

About You

Basic Qualifications

• 12 years of experience building large-scale mission-critical backend systems and APIs; with responsibility for cross-team or organization-wide API/platform architecture

• 7 years of experience in software engineering with hands-on experience in object-oriented modeling and software design concepts such as domain modeling abstraction encapsulation extensibility and maintainable service design

• 5 years of experience designing API endpoints that expose product functionality clearly consistently securely and at scale.

• Bachelors degree in a relevant field such as Computer Science or Engineering or equivalent practical experience

Other Qualifications

• Deep hands-on experience with object-oriented modeling and software design concepts using Java TypeScript or Python to build maintainable web services and APIs across REST SOAP JSON XMLand Swagger/OpenAPI.

• Experience designing API endpoints that expose product functionality clearly consistently and securely at scale with a proven track record of setting and driving technical standards across multiple teams.

• Experience leveraging AIassisted code generation and review tools (e.g. Cursor Claude Code GitHub Copilot) to improve development speed and quality.

• Strong expertise in distributed systems and cloud architectures including highthroughput lowlatency services horizontal scaling and faulttolerant design.

• Extensive experience with edge and gateway patterns (routing auth throttling rate limiting transformation multitenant concerns).

• Demonstrated leadership in API governance: standards definition contract review documentation and lifecycle management.

• Experience designing or evolving observability for APIs (metrics tracing logging) and using that data to define and monitor SLOs.

• Familiarity with agentic AI use cases and patterns for integrating LLMs/agents with enterprise APIs

• Experience with data platforms and analytical stores (such as Data Cloud or equivalent) and designing APIs that expose data safely and efficiently.

• Ability to collaborate and influence across Product Engineering platform teams and business stakeholders.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to articulate complex technical topics in simple compelling terms.

• Passion for growing others: mentoring stafflevel engineers supporting managers and building a strong API culture within Product Engineering.

• Growth mindset and comfort working in evolving spaces where the operating model is still being defined.

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 candidates 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 Workdays comprehensive benefits please click here.

Primary Location:

Primary Location Base Pay Range: $206400 USD - $309600 USD

Additional US Location(s) Base Pay Range: $173300 USD - $309600 USD

Our Approach to Flexible Work

With Flex Work were 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 youll 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.

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