Principal AI Researcher

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

Workday AI Research is a newly built elite organization dedicated to advancing the state-of-the-art in AI to power the Agentic Enterprise. We sit at the heart of Agent Factory Workdays innovation hub. While Agent Factory builds the production-grade agents used by 65M people the AI Research team discovers the fundamental breakthroughs that make those agents possible.

We are a high-impact research-to-reality team. We dont just conduct experiments in a vacuum; we solve the hardest enterprise-level problems in reasoning planning and multi-modal understanding. As a founding member of this research arm you will help shape our research culture publication strategy and the fundamental intelligence layer of the Workday platform.

About the Role

As a Principal AI Researcher you will be a technical founder and visionary for the Workday AI Research Team. This is a role for a scientist-leader who thrives on defining the frontier rather than just following a roadmap. You will move the needle on how LLMs and autonomous agents function within the complex high-trust environment of global enterprise data.

You will bridge the gap between groundbreaking theory and massive-scale application. Your work will involve defining research roadmaps for agentic reasoning long-horizon planning and model alignment ensuring that Workday remains the world leader in responsible intelligent enterprise agents.

Key Responsibilities:

• Define research direction in Agentic AI and LLMs.

• Advance the state of the art in agentic systems including retrieval grounding memory context personalization etc.

• Foundational Model Research: Advance Workdays proprietary capabilities in pre-training post-training (RLHF DPO) and domain-specific alignment for HR and Finance workflows.

• Publish & Open Source: Lead Workdays contribution to the global AI community through publications at top-tier venues (NeurIPS ICLR ICML ACL etc.) and strategic open-source releases.

• Research-to-Production Bridge: Partner with Agent Factory engineering pods to integrate SOTA research into production-ready services that scale to the worlds largest organizations.

• Mentorship & Culture: Act as a force multiplier for the newly formed research team fostering a culture of scientific rigor curiosity and high-velocity experimentation.

About You

Basic Qualifications

• 8 years of experience in AI/ML research or applied science with a proven history of taking products from applied research to global-scale production.

• Ph.D. or Masters degree in Computer Science Artificial Intelligence Math Physics or equivalent technical field.

• 4 years of professional experience using deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch JAX or TensorFlow.

• 2 years of deep expertise in LLMs or VLMs specifically in training alignment (RLHF/DPO) or agentic reasoning frameworks.

• SOTA Publication Record: A strong history of lead-researcher publications in top AI venues OR a proven track record of shipping industry-defining AI innovations to millions of users.

Other Qualifications

• Agentic AI Pioneer: Strong background in reinforcement learning tool-use or multi-agent systems.

• Systems Thinking: Ability to conduct research under real-world constraints such as latency cost-to-serve and enterprise data privacy.

• Leadership in Ambiguity: Proven experience in building a research agenda from the ground up and leading technical strike teams through open-ended problems.

• Communication: Exceptional ability to translate complex research breakthroughs into strategic value for product leaders and executive stakeholders.

• Ethics & Trust: A deep commitment to developing AI that is explainable fair and safe for the worlds largest workforces.

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: $228000 USD - $342000 USD

Additional US Location(s) Base Pay Range: $190600 USD - $342000 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.

At Workday we are committed to providing an accessible and inclusive hiring experience where all candidates can fully demonstrate their skills. If you require assistance or an accommodation at any point please email .

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Required Experience:

Staff IC