Senior Workday Analyst

An overview of this role

As a Senior Workday Analyst, you'll architect, optimize, and innovate the backbone of GitLab's People Technology ecosystem—a Workday HCM platform supporting 2,500+ team members across 40+ countries. You'll be critical to building the future of how GitLab team members experience work. Over the next 3 years, we're transforming into a unified, AI-augmented employee experience where team members get the right guidance at the right time, in their flow of work.

You'll own Workday's day-to-day reliability and configuration while simultaneously driving our strategic roadmap forward—implementing intelligent automation, embedding AI capabilities, and building seamless integrations that give team members the insights and tools they need to do their best work.

What You’ll Do  

• Own end-to-end Workday administration: configure modules, maintain business processes, manage bi-annual Workday releases, and iterate on configurations through bi-weekly sprint cycles across Advanced Compensation, Absence, Benefits, Time Tracking, Talent, and Security

• Ensure data integrity and compliance through systematic auditing, security reviews, and proactive issue resolution within these core modules

• Lead annual People program delivery (compensation cycles, performance management, benefits enrollment) with full ownership of configuration, testing, integration impacts, and stakeholder coordination

• Advance our unified employee experience vision by deploying Workday AI capabilities, orchestrating cross-system integrations with ServiceNow, Slack, and Cornerstone, and building intelligent automation and dashboards that transform how team members navigate talent management, compensation, and benefits

• Translate complex business requirements into scalable system solutions, balancing user experience, compliance requirements, and technical constraints across global operations

• Facilitate design sessions with People Operations, Compliance, Total Rewards, and Talent teams to understand needs, challenge assumptions, and recommend process improvements

• Champion human-centered design by understanding how team members and managers actually work, then building experiences that meet them in their flow

• Stay current on Workday, HR technology, and data management trends, and identify opportunities to improve GitLab’s People Technology ecosystem, including integrations and related tools.

What You’ll Bring 

• 8+ years hands-on Workday administration with deep expertise in Advanced Compensation, Absence, Benefits, Time Tracking, Talent, and Security modules—you've seen these systems at scale and know where they break

• Strong integration and automation capabilities using Workday Studio, BIRT, EIB, Cloud Connect, REST/SOAP APIs, and modern integration patterns—you've built connections between Workday and downstream systems that actually work reliably

• Proven track record building executive-grade Workday reports, calculated fields, and dashboards that translate complex data into clear insights leaders can act on

• Experience with or strong curiosity about AI/ML applications in HRIS: you understand how to leverage Workday Illuminate, predictive models, or conversational AI to eliminate manual work and improve employee experiences

• Systems thinking mindset: you naturally consider downstream impacts, data dependencies, compliance implications, and user experience when designing solutions—you think in workflows, not just features

• Consultative and collaborative approach: comfortable facilitating design sessions with Total Rewards, Talent, and Compliance stakeholders, challenging assumptions constructively, and translating business needs into scalable technical solutions

• Agile and iterative working style: you thrive in bi-weekly sprint cycles, prioritize ruthlessly, ship incremental value, and iterate based on feedback rather than waiting for perfect solutions

• Self-directed and results-oriented: proven ability to work asynchronously in global, all-remote environments across time zones with minimal supervision—you own outcomes, not just tasks

• Bonus: Experience managing Workday in complex multi-entity international environments with Works Councils, GDPR requirements, or cross-border employment structures

• Bonus: Exposure to multi-system integration projects connecting Workday with ServiceNow, Slack, learning platforms, or building conversational AI experiences across platforms

About the team

You'll join GitLab's People Operations & Technology team, a globally distributed team of operations, compliance, employment solutions, and technology professionals—the heart of GitLab's People organization. We're a team that builds systems designed to flex and scale without constant rework—nimble enough to meet business needs quickly while laying the foundation for 2-3x growth. We move as one strategic operating core, breaking down silos and clarifying ownership so we can amplify impact across the organization. Our approach is proactive: we design experiences that anticipate needs across the entire team member journey, balancing operational efficiency with genuine empathy for how people actually work at GitLab. We're constantly reimagining how we operate—using automation, AI, and data-driven insights to scale smarter and solve real problems. We're optimizing our existing technology investments and thoughtfully introducing AI where it genuinely improves experiences, not just because it's trendy.