Engineer - UI and Tooling Server

We’re Workday, a Fortune 500 company and a leading AI platform for managing people, money, and agents. We're looking for an Engineer to join our UI and Tooling Server team, which is responsible for designing, building, and operating the backend services at the core of Workday's Developer Platform.

As an Engineer on the UI and Tooling Server team, you will design, build, and operate the backend services at the core of Workday's Developer Platform. You will work primarily across a JVM stack Java and Kotlin, Spring Boot running on AWS and Kubernetes owning features end to end , from API contract, to modern agentic user interface like A2UI, to production health.

In this role, you will:

• Design and deliver backend microservices and developer-facing UI features end to end, taking ownership from technical design through production rollout and ongoing operational health.
• Build and evolve well-governed public and internal APIs, applying versioning, backward compatibility, and security standards to surfaces that external developers depend on.
• Operate what you build in a cloud-native environment , instrumenting services with metrics, logging, and SLO-based alerting, and participating in on-call to keep a multi-cluster fleet healthy.
• Integrate AI and agentic capabilities into the platform, including large language model integrations, real-time streaming interfaces, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) based tooling.
• Use AI-augmented development tools as a daily part of your workflow, and help establish team practices for directing, reviewing, and validating agent-generated code.
• Partner with product managers, designers, and engineers across teams to break ambiguous requirements into well-scoped, executable work, and clearly articulate technical tradeoffs to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Raise the technical bar through code review, design feedback, pairing, and strong test automation, and write clear technical documentation for the features you own.

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of software engineering with a strong focus on backend microservice architectures and distributed systems.
• 5+ years of experience in each of the following:
• Programming: Java or Kotlin, with production Spring Boot experience. Go is a plus.
• Cloud platforms: AWS (preferred), GCP, or Azure.
• Containerization and orchestration: Docker and Kubernetes.
• 3+ years operating production services you own , including observability (metrics, logging, tracing), SLO-based alerting, and on-call.
• Hands-on experience with AI-augmented development (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot), including the ability to direct, review, and validate agent-generated code.

Nice to Have:

• Deep backend proficiency in Java or Kotlin, with strong command of design patterns, distributed systems, and high-availability architecture.
• A reliability mindset: you have designed for failure, capacity, and graceful degradation on services that carry real production traffic.
• Expert API development and contract management, including versioning, backward compatibility, and familiarity with modern protocols (e.g., MCP) to support a spec-driven development approach.
• Service ownership: end-to-end accountability for operational health, test automation, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud-native observability.
• Hands-on experience integrating AI capabilities into software products, not only using AI tools to write code.
• 1+ years of experience building modern frontend UIs (e.g., React, Angular, or Vue), sufficient to own a feature from API through UI.
• Strong collaborator and communicator , able to partner with PMs, designers, and engineers to break work down and clearly articulate technical tradeoffs to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience with developer platforms, DevTools, language servers, or other core engineering platforms is a plus.

Pay Information:

• 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.
• Primary Location: USA.CA.Pleasanton Primary Location Base Pay Range: $148,000 USD - $222,000 USD Additional US Location(s) Base Pay Range: $123,900 USD - $222,000 USD