Sr Director, Software Development Engineering

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 Database Engineering team is the foundation of Workday’s data persistence layer. We manage and scale the core MySQL and PostgreSQL infrastructure that supports the Workday platform, while leading public-cloud migration efforts that help customers transition safely and efficiently from private-cloud to public-cloud environments. Our work enables Workday’s growth and long-term platform resilience. The team tackles complex engineering challenges, including database capacity planning at scale, platform scalability, and migration of large enterprise customers with terabytes of data. We are a deeply technical organization that takes pride in stewarding Workday’s most critical data. If you are energized by solving infrastructure challenges at enterprise scale and shaping how Workday operates in the cloud, this is the team for you.

About the Role

As the Senior Director, Database Engineering & Public Cloud Migration, you will lead two closely aligned engineering organizations: Database Engineering and Public Cloud Migration Engineering. You will establish a cohesive strategy across both portfolios while maintaining clear accountability, priorities, roadmaps, and operating models for each. This executive leadership role is responsible for organizational strategy, talent development, investment prioritization, cross-functional alignment, and delivery management.

Database Engineering

• You will set the strategy and organizational direction for database platform reliability, availability, security, scalability, and performance.
• You will lead the evolution from manual database operations to highly automated, observable, and resilient cloud-native platforms.
• You will establish standards for reliability engineering, incident management, disaster recovery, capacity planning, service-level objectives, and operational excellence.
• In partnership with Infrastructure, Cloud Operations, Security, and Product Engineering leaders, you will ensure the database platform meets current and future business needs, building an organization that reduces operational toil, improves recovery outcomes, and continuously strengthens platform resiliency.

Public Cloud Migration Engineering

• You will define the strategy, operating model, and multi-year roadmap for public-cloud customer migrations.
• You will lead the development and scaling of migration platforms, automation, tooling, and processes that enable secure, dependable, and efficient migrations.
• You will partner with Product, Customer Support, Cloud Operations, and customer-facing teams to align migration capacity, eligibility, priorities, customer commitments, and risk management.
• You will improve migration predictability, throughput, and customer experience, while advancing multi-cloud capabilities and platform standardization.

Leadership

• You will lead and develop senior engineering leaders, managers, and high-performing technical teams across both portfolios.
• You will set clear organizational goals, success measures, investment priorities, and delivery commitments.
• You will balance the distinct needs of database reliability and migration delivery while identifying opportunities for shared platforms, automation, and operating practices.
• You will represent both organizations in executive planning, cross-functional reviews, and strategic decision-making.
• You will foster a culture of accountability, inclusion, technical excellence, continuous imand provement, and customer focus.

About You

Basic Qualifications:

• 15+ years of experience in database engineering, cloud infrastructure, platform engineering, software engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• 8+ years of experience leading and developing management leaders, including Directors and Senior Managers.
• 10+ years of experience building high-performing technical teams and delivering complex projects or programs.
• Experience leading large-scale database engineering, cloud platform, infrastructure reliability, or public-cloud migration organizations.
• Experience setting and delivering multi-year organizational and technology strategies in complex enterprise environments.
• Experience with multi-cloud architectures, including AWS and GCP, and migration of global enterprise workloads.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

Other Qualifications:

• Deep understanding of database reliability, disaster recovery, observability, incident management, performance engineering, and capacity planning.
• Architectural knowledge of database internals, including replication topologies, engine tuning, and distributed-systems latency.
• Experience with Kubernetes, container platforms, infrastructure as code, CI/CD principles, and automated operations.
• Familiarity with AWS and GCP cloud environments and associated database services.
• Demonstrated success improving platform reliability, migration throughput, operational efficiency, and customer experience.
• Ability to influence and align executive partners across Engineering, Product, Customer Support, Cloud Operations, Security, and other functions.
• Excellent executive communication, organizational leadership, relationship-building, and cross-functional collaboration skills.

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 candidate’s 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 Workday’s comprehensive benefits, please click here.

• Primary Location: USA.CA.Pleasanton
• Primary Location Base Pay Range: $281,600 USD - $422,400 USD
• Additional US Location(s) Base Pay Range: $231,800 USD