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Senior Applied AI Engineer
Workday, Inc.
Source: Headcount Labs · original listing ↗
Job data: Headcount Labs, ODbL 1.0. Job descriptions belong to their employers.
Source date: 11/2/2026
About 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 The Forward Intelligence team owns the skills that power Workday's agent platform responsible for customer onboarding through the full post-deployment lifecycle - turning the deep configuration expertise and hard-earned wisdom of our Domain Experts and Deployment Consultants into production-grade, fully tested skills that the agent can execute unattended in live customer tenants. What we own: The end-to-end skill engine and governance ecosystem, spanning skill knowledge extraction, promotion pipelines, evaluation frameworks, self-correcting drift detection, and developer authoring environments. How we build: Developer-first authoring environments and automated platform tooling that enable engineers to rapidly craft, test, and publish deterministic skills with built-in guardrails. Agentic engineering: We build IDE tooling, prompt templates, .cursorrules configurations, and context-ingestion pipelines that allow AI-assisted editors (like Cursor) to natively generate compliant Model Context Protocol (MCP) schemas on the first try. How we work: Close end-to-end collaboration across domain experts, AI platform engineers, and site reliability teams to transform domain knowledge into trustworthy, production-ready AI skills. About the Role We are seeking an Applied AI Engineer to serve as a high-impact bridge between human domain expertise and production AI execution. In this role, you will own the end-to-end authoring, prompt architecture, and API integration of AI skills that power Workday's core agentic capabilities. This is a pivotal, high-visibility engineering position with cross-organizational impact. You will work directly with top Subject Matter Experts across business units to translate complex enterprise logic, tribal configuration knowledge, and standard operating procedures into deterministic, schema-compliant AI tools using state-of-the-art AI-assisted development environments. Key Responsibilities * Enterprise Skill Authoring & Domain Codification: Partner directly with domain experts and senior consultants across business units to translate complex business logic, prose, and raw scripts into optimal, structured AI skill definitions. * AI-Assisted Editor Mastery: Operate at the cutting edge of AI-driven software development (using Cursor, Claude Code, and custom tooling) to rapidly generate, refactor, and refine prompt logic, tool descriptions, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) tool calls. * API & Capability Orchestration: Connect skills to backend systems by wiring up enterprise REST APIs, MCP servers, and complex data structures for seamless agent execution. * Logic Optimization & Deduplication: Abstract messy business procedures into clean, modular logic—separating prose from executable code while optimizing prompt structures for minimal token consumption and maximum execution reliability. * Edge-Case Stress Testing: Design and implement automated test suites to stress-test skill edge cases, API parameter bounds, fallback logic, and error-handling routines before deployment. * Enablement & Code Review: Scale authoring standards across Workday by establishing best practices, training domain experts on self-serve authoring workflows, and reviewing submitted skill pull requests for schema compliance and API integrity. * Enforce Evaluation-Driven Development (EDD): Partner with Domain Experts to curate benchmark eval datasets, implementing LLM-as-a-Judge scoring, trajectory trace analysis, and CI/CD quality gates to validate skill accuracy and prevent regressions prior to production promotion. * Production Telemetry & Drift Analysis: Establish feedback loops using production agent trace logs to identify trajectory failures, update eval benchmark suites, and continuously improve skill deterministic behavior. About You Basic Qualifications * 8+ years of professional software engineering experience in Python or TypeScript with a focus on API integrations, backend services, or scripting. * 1+ years of hands-on experience leveraging AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Claude Code) to author, refactor, and debug production code. * Strong experience working with REST APIs, JSON/YAML schemas, and structured data transformations. * Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience. Other Qualifications * Strong technical communication and interpersonal skills to collaborate effectively with non-technical domain experts and translate requirements into clean technical specs. * Generative AI & Tool Calling: Solid grasp of prompt engineering, function calling, structured outputs, and agentic specifications (e.g., Model Context Protocol / MCP). * Code Refactoring & Systems Rigor: Ability to dissect complex domain scripts or unstructured documentation and refactor them into modular, testable, production-ready code. * Testing & Quality Mindset: Experience writing unit/integration test cases, mocking API dependencies, and debugging schema mismatches.Basic Qualification Workday Pay Transparency Statement (For EU Locations Only) Listed below is the base salary range applicable to this position. Workday pay ranges (and the precise pay offered to the successful candidate) are based on a number of objective criteria such as relevant experience and skills, and educational qualifications, level of responsibility, demands of the role, work location and business need. 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 awarded by Workday Inc. For more information regarding Workday’s comprehensive benefits, please [click here](http://benefits.workday.com/). Primary Location Base Pay Range: €96,000 EUR - €144,000 EUR Ireland 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](mailto: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. 🌟 Join Our Talent Community [here](https://workday.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Workday/introduceYourself)! Stay connected with Workday: * Get the latest news & content * Be first to hear about new roles * Never miss an opportunity 🌐 [Career Site](https://www.workday.com/careers)💡 [Benefits](https://benefits.workday.com/)🌟 [Join Our Talent Community](https://workday.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Workday/introduceYourself)📰 [Workday Life Blog](https://workdaylifeblog.medium.com/) 🤝 [Inclusion and Belonging](https://www.workday.com/en-us/company/about-workday/value-inclusion-belonging-for-everyone.html?refCamp=701VT00000W9aD8YAJ) 📄 [Application and Interview Tips](https://www.workday.com/en-us/company/careers/thank-you.html) 🎓 [Early Careers / Internships](https://www.workday.com/careers/earlycareer)📋[Contractor Job Site](https://workday.talentnet.community/) 👩💻 Engineering, but brighter. 💼 Sales, but brighter. 🤝 CX & Consulting, but brighter. Visit our Career Site [here](https://www.workday.com/careers). Read more below to learn more on our stance on being a proud equal opportunity workplace, pay transparency and accommodation support. Workday is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. Individuals seeking employment at Workday are considered without regards to age, ancestry, color, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, mental or physical disability, national origin, protected family care or medical leave status, race, religion (including beliefs and practices or the absence thereof), sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. Further, pursuant to applicable local ordinances, Workday will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. We do not accept resumes from headhunters, placement agencies, or other suppliers that have not signed a formal agreement with us. You may view the [Workday's Pay Transparency Policy](http://www.workday.com/content/dam/web/en-us/documents/workday-pay-transparency-statement.pdf), and [Know Your Rights Notice](https://www.eeoc.gov/sites/default/files/2022-10/EEOC_KnowYourRights_screen_reader_10_20.pdf), by clicking on their corresponding links. 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 accommodation, 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](mailto:accommodations@workday.com), as far in advance as possible.