Senior AI Engineer in Vancouver

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. Our culture is rooted in integrity, empathy, and shared enthusiasm. We look for curious minds and courageous collaborators who bring sun‑drenched optimism and drive.

About the Team

Agent Factory is where Workday’s next chapter gets built. We’re forming small, senior, cross‑functional AI teams that bring together product leaders, machine learning engineers, and full‑stack builders to create intelligent agents used by millions of people every day. This is production‑grade AI—deeply embedded into Workday’s platform. Teams own problems end to end, collaborate tightly across disciplines, and use the right tools to solve real customer challenges at global scale. You’ll work at the intersection of AI, platform architecture, and human workflows, with the autonomy to shape how agents reason, act, and scale responsibly.

About the Role

As a Principal AI Engineer in Agent Factory, you will lead the end‑to‑end system design, architectural framework, and product integration of Workday’s next generation of intelligent agents. Your mission is intelligence orchestration and product delivery—connecting the brain to the product. You will own the design, experimentation, and orchestration of complex agentic workflows, translating cutting‑edge AI capabilities into enterprise‑grade business value. You will be a core champion for Responsible and Governed AI—architecting systems with strict guardrails for data privacy, predictability, and explainability. This role requires a balance of high‑level system design and hands‑on execution, solving critical product constraints like latency, cost, and reliability.

Basic Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience with deep expertise in distributed systems, cloud computing, and API design, plus 2+ years of dedicated focus building production‑grade LLM/agentic systems OR 7+ years of experience specifically within Machine Learning Engineering or AI application development, with 3+ years dedicated to shipping LLM‑backed products.
• 3+ years of hands‑on experience integrating large models (LLMs, Foundation Models) and modern AI APIs into user‑facing enterprise products.
• 2+ years of experience designing and scaling complex AI orchestration architectures—including multi‑agent frameworks, routing layers, and advanced RAG pipelines.
• 6+ years of experience optimizing application performance, with 2+ years applied to modern LLM constraints.
• 6+ years of proven experience leveraging cloud computing platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP) to deploy highly responsive, scalable systems.

Other Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree (Master’s preferred) in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent technical field.
• Responsible AI Stewardship: Deep understanding of how to implement governance, guardrails, security layers, and evaluation mechanisms necessary when deploying autonomous agents over sensitive enterprise HR and financial data.
• Proven track record of technically leading cross‑functional pods, mentoring senior engineers, and steering the product development lifecycle from abstract concept to successful deployment.
• Product‑First AI Mindset: Deep focus on business value, user experience, and applying deep learning/large models directly to solve practical end‑user challenges.
• System Design & Integration: Expert‑level ability to architect robust application layers that wrap around AI models, ensuring system predictability, error handling, and seamless UX integration.
• Experimentation & Evaluation: Skilled in rapid prototyping, benchmarking model outputs against product requirements, and managing continuous experimentation cycles for agentic behavior.
• Thrives in Ambiguity: Highly autonomous leader capable of taking complex, open‑ended product goals and turning them into scalable, concrete engineering realities.

Workday Pay Transparency Statement

Primary Location: CAN.BC.Vancouver

Primary CAN Base Pay Range: $169,000 - $253,000 CAD

Additional CAN Location(s) Base Pay Range: $169,000 - $253,000 CAD

Workday pay ranges vary based on work location. This role may be eligible for the Workday Bonus Plan or a role‑specific commission/bonus, as well as annual refresh stock grants.

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.

Equal Opportunity Employment and Accommodations

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.