Software Engineer/Senior Software Engineer - AI Platform (Agent Cell)

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, 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. 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.

Requirements

Basic Qualifications (Software Engineer): 5+ years experience in software development engineering including designing, developing, and deploying software solutions.

Basic Qualifications (Senior Software Engineer): 8+ years experience in software development engineering, architecting, building, and scaling robust and efficient software systems; 6+ years of software engineering experience with platform systems.

Other Qualification:

• Strong experience with distributed systems, APIs, and service-oriented architecture.
• Proficiency in at least one systems or backend language (for example, Python, Rust, Java or Go).
• Proficiency with IaC tools such as Terraform.
• Experience building secure systems with least-privilege patterns and policy controls.
• 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.

Pay

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.

• Primary Location: USA.CO.Boulder – Base Pay Range: $156,000 USD - $234,000 USD
• Additional US Location(s) Base Pay Range: $148,200 USD - $264,000 USD