Sr. Product Owner - Workday

• Define, communicate, and execute the product vision and roadmap for Workday capabilities, aligning platform investments with enterprise strategy, operational goals, compliance requirements, user experience, and stakeholder value.

• Own and prioritize the Workday product backlog, including epics, features, user stories, defects, technical enablers, and enhancement requests while balancing business value, risk, regulatory requirements, technical dependencies, and operational needs.

• Partner with HR, Finance, Payroll, Procurement, Accounting, IT, Security, Enterprise Architecture, Data & Analytics, and external vendors to gather requirements, validate priorities, resolve issues, and deliver scalable, business-driven solutions.

• Translate business processes, policies, compliance requirements, and operational needs into product requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, process flows, reporting specifications, integration requirements, test scenarios, and release plans.

• Lead the design, configuration, enhancement, and governance of Workday business processes, security, reporting, integrations, and platform capabilities, ensuring solutions are scalable, secure, auditable, maintainable, and aligned with enterprise standards.

• Manage Agile delivery processes, including backlog refinement, sprint planning, release planning, stakeholder alignment, Scrum ceremonies, and continuous improvement initiatives.

• Collaborate with functional, technical, integration, reporting, security, testing, and change management teams to remove delivery obstacles, mitigate risks, clarify requirements, and communicate progress, dependencies, scope decisions, and release readiness.

• Conduct business analysis and impact assessments for proposed changes, evaluating implications for data integrity, effective dating, employee lifecycle processes, financial controls, accounting structures, reporting, integrations, security, payroll, and downstream systems.

• Lead and support testing activities, including functional, regression, integration, end-to-end, user acceptance, and production validation testing to ensure delivered solutions meet business and quality expectations.

• Drive continuous improvement by analyzing support trends, production incidents, audit findings, adoption feedback, process inefficiencies, and Workday release opportunities to identify enhancements, automation opportunities, and roadmap priorities.

• Partner with Finance, IT, Security, and Compliance teams to ensure effective governance, data quality, segregation of duties, internal controls, risk management, and long-term operational supportability across the Workday ecosystem.

Behaviors and Competencies

• Analytical Thinking: Can synthesize complex data, identify patterns, draw insights, and present findings clearly and understandably.

• Business Acumen: Can evaluate market trends and competitive landscape to identify opportunities and risks.

• Collaboration: Can proactively seek out diverse perspectives, facilitate open communication among team members, and drive toward consensus and action.

• Communication: Can effectively communicate complex ideas and information to diverse audiences and can facilitate effective communication between others.

• Data Analysis: Can apply complex analytical methods and algorithms for predictive modeling and can interpret and communicate the results effectively.

• Detail-Oriented: Can manage complex tasks or projects, identifying errors or inconsistencies, and ensuring all details are addressed, necessary corrections are made, and quality is maintained.

• Initiative: Can proactively seek out challenges, initiate projects, and contribute to innovative ideas.

• Follow-Through: Can independently track progress, make necessary adjustments, and ensure the successful completion of complex projects.

• Organization: Can effectively coordinate multiple projects, delegate tasks where appropriate, and employ advanced organizational tools and methods.

• Problem-Solving: Can proactively identify potential problems, initiate preventive measures, and propose and contribute to innovative solutions.

Skill Level Requirements

• Product ownership and product management expertise with the ability to develop and execute strategic roadmaps, manage backlogs, and prioritize competing business needs.

• Strong analytical thinking skills with the ability to synthesize complex Workday processes, reporting, integrations, security, and stakeholder requirements into actionable recommendations.

• Knowledge of Workday business process configuration, including approvals, notifications, condition rules, validations, effective dating, and operational impacts.

• Understanding of Workday reporting and analytics, including custom reports, calculated fields, dashboards, data definitions, and operational reporting requirements.

• Knowledge of Workday integrations, including API-driven and file-based integration concepts, data dependencies, monitoring, reconciliation, and error resolution considerations.

• Understanding of Workday security architecture, including role-based security, business process security, domain security, and access governance.

• Experience supporting Agile software development and delivery methodologies, including sprint planning, backlog refinement, release planning, and stakeholder alignment.

• Strong business analysis skills, including requirements gathering, process mapping, user story development, acceptance criteria creation, and testing coordination.

• Excellent collaboration, communication, organizational, and stakeholder management skills.

• Ability to analyze operational data, adoption metrics, support trends, defect patterns, and reporting outputs to support prioritization and continuous improvement efforts.

• Strong problem-solving and change leadership capabilities with a focus on balancing quality, risk, speed, and business value.

• Ability to create business documentation, user stories, acceptance criteria, job aids, release notes, and executive-level communications.

Other Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent relevant work experience required.

• 3-5 years of experience in a Product Owner, Business Systems, Business Analyst, or Enterprise Application Delivery role required.

• 3-5 years of experience supporting Agile software development or Agile delivery methodologies required.

• Ability to travel up to 10%.

Preferred

• Hands-on experience supporting Workday HCM and/or Workday ERP capabilities.

• Experience partnering with HR, Finance, Payroll, Procurement, IT, Security, Compliance, and vendor teams.

• Experience with Workday releases, regression testing, user acceptance testing (UAT), stakeholder demonstrations, production validation, and hypercare support.

• Experience with requirements management tools, work management platforms, documentation repositories, and collaboration tools.

• Workday release management experience, including feature analysis, impact assessment, regression test planning, stakeholder communications, enablement, and adoption tracking.

• Experience translating complex Workday system functionality into business documentation, user stories, acceptance criteria, job aids, release notes, and executive-ready status updates.