Senior Workday Integration Engineer - Talent Systems (BizTech) at Airbnb

Airbnb was born in 2007 when two hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to over 5 million hosts who have welcomed over 2 billion guest arrivals in almost every country across the globe. Every day, hosts offer unique stays and experiences that make it possible for guests to connect with communities in a more authentic way. About the Team The Talent Systems team within BizTech is the trusted technology partner to Employee Experience, Recruiting, Payroll, Procurement, Legal, and Privacy teams across Airbnb's global operations. Driven by the philosophy of "High Tech, Human Touch," we design and implement technology that meets both business objectives and employee needs — building robust frameworks that support the full employee journey, delivering AI-enabled self-service tools, and playing a key role in payroll management and benefits enrollment. We own and operate a portfolio of 300+ production integrations spanning payroll processors, benefits carriers, identity providers, compliance vendors, and internal platforms, with Workday at the center. You'll partner closely with HR Centers of Excellence, IT Security, Finance, and external vendors to deliver enterprise-grade integration solutions that power Airbnb's global HR technology ecosystem. The Difference You Will Make As a Senior Workday Integration Engineer, you will be the technical representative for integration initiatives critical to the success of BizTech and Airbnb. You will help shape our integration strategy and technical roadmap, influencing architectural decisions that enable seamless HR data flows across our global employee population. This is a hands-on builder role — you will personally write integration logic, own production reliability, and make architectural decisions. You'll drive "touchless" automation initiatives, reduce manual intervention, and ensure compliance across multiple jurisdictions. Your work will directly impact how thousands of Airbnb employees experience their payroll, benefits, time tracking, and HR processes. As a Senior-level engineer, you'll strategize 6+ months ahead, proactively identify operational gaps, and establish patterns that improve the long-term success of BizTech and the Talent Systems team. What You'll Own Integration Development & Architecture • Architect, design, build, and maintain inbound and outbound integrations using Workday Studio, Core Connectors, EIBs, Document Transforms, and RaaS API endpoints — with clear judgment on when each tool is the right choice (e.g., when EIB limitations require moving to Studio; when RaaS is appropriate vs. direct WWS calls) • Develop integrations against Workday Web Services (WWS), including WSDL interpretation, web service versioning, and request/response handling for both SOAP and REST endpoints • Build and expose RaaS API endpoints for internal consumers and external vendor partners; provide hands-on guidance to vendors building against Airbnb's API specifications • Handle high-volume data scenarios — payroll runs, benefits open enrollment, and global rollouts — with appropriate performance and scalability design Workday-Native Depth • Build and maintain advanced Custom Reports and Calculated Fields to shape data for integration consumption • Work within and around the Business Process Framework — understanding how business process events trigger integration flows and how to safely build touchpoints without disrupting core HR workflows • Leverage Core Connectors and Business Processes to configure outbound integrations for benefits, payroll, and HR change events • Serve as subject matter expert on current and upcoming Workday capabilities, including Workday AI Features, Orchestrate, and Extend • Maintain integrations across Workday's semi-annual release cycle: proactively assess release notes for impact, test in sandbox, and deploy updates to production with documented change controls Functional Configuration Awareness • Demonstrate working knowledge of Workday functional configuration across HCM, Benefits, Payroll, Security, and Time & Absence — sufficient to navigate a tenant, read a business process definition, and identify upstream causes of integration failures without requiring a functional analyst to translate • Understand Workday payroll interfaces (PECI, PICOF) and how they interact with third-party payroll providers Production Reliability & Data Governance • Own SLAs for your integration portfolio; build and maintain monitoring, alerting, retry logic, idempotency strategies, and runbooks so failures are caught early and resolved quickly • Implement PII handling, audit controls, and data reconciliation strategies that meet compliance requirements across multiple jurisdictions (GDPR, India PDPB, SOC 2) • Enforce data security protocols: PGP, SSH, SFTP, HTTPS, OAuth 2.0, SAML, WS-Security • Manage tenant deployment strategy: sandbox → production promotion, version control of integration artifacts via Git, and rollback planning Technical Leadership & Collaboration • Provide advanced technical leadership on integration design decisions, influencing cross-domain solutions across BizTech and partner teams • Translate complex functional and business requirements into sound technical integration designs, clearly evaluating constraints and trade-offs for stakeholders at all levels • Partner with Employee Experience, Recruiting, Payroll, and IT Security teams to gather requirements and deliver solutions • Collaborate with adjacent middleware integration teams (e.g., MuleSoft) building integrations against Workday's exposed APIs — advising on RaaS endpoint security, ISU permissions, OAuth configuration, schema versioning, and rate limit management • Write thorough Integration Design Documents, technical specifications, and operational runbooks maintainable by others • Conduct code reviews and contribute to integration standards, reusable patterns, and governance practices across Talent Systems • Proactively identify risks, communicate trade-offs, and manage stakeholder expectations when constraints require it Your Expertise Required • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience) • 10+ years of industry experience in software development or systems integration • 6+ years of hands-on Workday integration development experience, covering the full lifecycle: requirements → design → build → testing → go-live → post-production support • Demonstrated, hands-on proficiency — meaning you have personally written the code — in: • Workday Studio: complex multi-step integrations, sub-integrations, custom error handling and fault frameworks, XSLT transformations • Core Connectors: worker data, business process events, payroll and benefits outbound connectors • Enterprise Interface Builder (EIBs): including knowledge of where EIBs are appropriate and where their limitations require escalation to Studio • Document Transforms: payload mapping and field-level transformation logic • RaaS (Report-as-a-Service): advanced report design, calculated fields, and endpoint exposure • Workday Web Services (WWS): WSDL reading, SOAP/REST web service calls, versioning, and error response handling • Expertise building advanced Custom Reports and Calculated Fields to support integration logic • Working knowledge of the Business Process Framework and how events trigger and interact with integration flows • Expert proficiency in XSLT, XML, and JSON; proficiency in Java, XTT, and ETV sufficient for Studio development • Experience integrating Workday with downstream SaaS systems: payroll processors, benefits carriers, ATS platforms, identity providers, and HCM downstream systems • Familiarity with Workday functional configuration across HCM, Benefits, Payroll, Security, and Time & Absence — enough to independently navigate a tenant and diagnose upstream data issues • Strong knowledge of data security and compliance requirements: PGP, SFTP, OAuth 2.0, SAML, WS-Security, PII handling • Experience managing integrations across Workday's semi-annual release cycle, including impact assessment and sandbox testing • Git-based version control and experience with structured deployment and change management processes • Experience working in an Agile/Scrum environment • Exceptional written and verbal communication skills; able to write clear IDDs and runbooks and present technical trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders • Proven track record as a technical leader influencing architecture decisions across cross-functional teams Preferred • Workday Pro Certification in Integrations (highly valued) • Experience with Workday payroll interfaces (PECI, PICOF) and third-party payroll providers • Experience with Workday Orchestrate and Extend capabilities • Experience with CloudPay or Global Payroll Connect (GPC) • Experience with middleware/iPaaS platforms (MuleSoft, Boomi, Workato) and the architectural judgment to know when middleware is appropriate vs. native Workday integration • Experience supporting global, multi-country production environments • Knowledge of GDPR, India PDPB, or SOC 2 compliance requirements in the context of HR data flows