Boring technology, Micromanagement, and no Career Advancement - Associate Software Engineer Workday Employee Review

1.0
Nov 11, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Any company that has a good cash flow is good for seniors, and people in the finance/hr or service roles. If you're into fun and like to live at work, the culture is great. The leadership is top-notch. Some visionary guys are in power here that help spurn the company forward.

Cons

When it comes to engineering, IT, and development, this place is a dead end. If you want to work day and night, spent 60 hours a week at a job that underpays you for 40 hours, this is your place. You will spend the rest of your life here in proprietary-language programming, finding hidden bugs in the system beyond your domain of knowledge. You'll spend most of your time tracking down people who caused a particular issue, not learning anything new about technology. Documentation is terrible here. Better become best friends with key people to know what's going on. They say they have career advancement opportunity here because you go nominally from associate, to engineer, to senior engineer, but these titles don't mean anything and they don't come with much pay increase. They do pay ok but that's only because their stock benefits are doing well "for the moment." The stock prices has been continually slowing in growth since I started and the lofty promise of And do the math and you'll realize that even if you worked only 40 hours a week, you make less than half the hourly pay of the average contractor. Don't be fooled by the fancy cars some workday employees drive. Seniority is the single most important factor here. If you are employee 500 or less, you're doing well. Also don't expect to design anything because all the important decisions are made by 6+ year seniors. If you worked at a startup or medium sized company you'd be doing the same job as them and make more in the long run.

Explore other reviews about Workday

5.0
May 20, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Workday is a truly values-driven company, and you can feel it every day. We’re in the middle of an exciting transformation to drive more innovation and speed, and while that has meant making some tough decisions, those decisions are always grounded in our core values. Employees and customers are consistently kept at the center, and there’s a real sense that doing what’s right guides how we operate and where we’re going as a company.

Cons

Decision-making can sometimes feel slow and unclear, as it’s not always obvious who has true ownership or final say. In a few areas, especially HR, leadership can feel more oriented around selling and positioning our products than around deep, hands-on practitioner experience, which occasionally creates a gap between strategy and the day-to-day needs of employees and managers.

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Workday Response
3w
Thank you for your feedback. We are proud of our culture and the success that we have achieved because of the hard work and dedication of our Workmates. Thanks for your contributions, your transparency, and for being an integral part of the Workday team during your time here.
4.0
Mar 31, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great people, benefits, culture, and pay. Lots of "workmates" with long tenures (10+ years). I truly wanted to retire from Workday!

Cons

Leadership changes freaked a lot of people out. Things felt unstable within the org for the last year (2025). The culture shifted from one that focused on employee growth to adopt all AI at all costs, and do it yesterday! It was extremely stressful to learn so much, so quickly, and create your own use cases and custom workflows - then to ultimately be laid off despite significant contributions.

1
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Workday Response
2mo
Thank you for your valuable input. At Workday, we pride ourselves on fostering a transparent workplace, maintaining the highest ethical standards, and promoting innovation. It's heartening to hear about your positive journey as a Workmate. We continue to be committed to delivering exceptional experiences for our Workmates.
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