Senior Workday Architect

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Posting Information:
This posting is for an existing vacancy.

The internal posting deadline for this position is November 5 2026, at 11:59PM

Job Description:

Primary Purpose 

The Senior Workday Architect is the design authority for the University’s Workday platform. The role establishes and governs platform architecture, configuration principles, integration patterns, security design, reporting architecture, data design, and cross-module standards for Workday Human Capital Management, Payroll and Financial Management. Working with the Enterprise Systems Associate Director and Manager, functional owners, functional leads, project leaders/managers, and technical specialists, the Architect translates approved priorities and documented requirements into coherent, secure, scalable and supportable solution designs. The role owns the Workday target state architecture and transition plan and provides architectural advice to portfolio roadmap and investment decisions. 

Key Accountabilities 

Establishes Workday architecture and design governance 

• Develops and maintains Workday target state architecture, design principles, configuration standards, reference patterns, and architecture decision records. 

• Defines proportionate design review checkpoints for configuration, security, integration, reporting, and data decisions. 

• Reviews and approves material designs within delegated architectural authority and documents exceptions requiring portfolio or institutional approval. 

• Identifies cross-module impacts, dependencies, duplication, customization risk, and technical debt before implementation. 

• Provides architectural input into roadmap, investment, lifecycle, and release decisions. 

Provides cross-module solution design leadership 

• Guides solution design across HCM, Payroll and Financial Management, ensuring coherence among business processes, organizations, worktags, security, reporting, and integrations. 

• Works with functional owners and analysts to simplify solutions, use supported platform capabilities and avoid unnecessary customization. 

• Incorporates requirements identified by accountable functional, legal, privacy, security, audit, and regulatory stakeholders into solution design. 

• Facilitates resolution of complex design issues spanning HR, Payroll, Finance, Procurement, Research, and related institutional systems. 

Governs integrations and data architecture 

• Defines Workday integration patterns, non-functional requirements, and criteria for selecting Workday-native capabilities or institutional middleware. 

• Reviews complex or high-risk integrations involving student, identity, learning, banking, benefits, government, research, and analytics platforms. 

• Promotes reuse, observability, secure data exchange, reliable scheduling, recoverability, and maintainable support arrangements. 

• Works with delivery teams to maintain an architectural view of integrations, dependencies, data flows, and technical risks. 

• Aligns Workday data design with institutional data governance, stewardship, retention, records, and analytics requirements. 

Governs security, controls and privacy by design 

• Defines Workday security architecture principles and review processes for role, domain and business process security designs. 

• Partners with cybersecurity, identity, privacy, audit, risk, and functional control owners to incorporate approved requirements and segregation of duties considerations. 

• Advises on security model risks, mitigating controls, and design exceptions. 

• Ensures security and privacy implications are documented and appropriately approved at defined solution design checkpoints. 

Guides reporting and analytics architecture 

• Defines Workday reporting architecture and design standards in alignment with institutional data, analytics, and reporting strategies. 

• Advises on the appropriate use of Workday operational reporting, dashboards, Prism, or downstream analytics platforms. 

• Promotes consistent definitions, governed data sources, performance, security, and maintainability across reporting solutions. 

• Reviews complex or institutionally significant reporting designs and data extracts. 

Supports implementation, releases and production readiness 

• Serves as architecture lead for major Workday implementations, optimizations, and cross-module enhancements. 

• Provides design guidance to implementation partners and internal teams and validates alignment with approved architecture. 

• Advises on test scope, regression impacts, cutover design, production readiness, and architectural risks without replacing project or operational accountability. 

• Assesses Workday feature and release impacts and recommends adoption, remediation, or further analysis. 

Provides technical leadership and mentorship 

• Acts as a trusted architectural advisor to Enterprise Systems, HR, Payroll, Finance, and IST leaders. 

• Facilitates architecture reviews and presents options, risks, and recommendations to governance and leadership bodies. 

• Mentors Workday analysts, configurators, integration developers, reporting specialists, and security administrators. 

• Builds reusable standards, decision records, and design knowledge. 

Required Qualifications  

Education 

• University degree or equivalent combination of post-secondary education and relevant experience. 

• Advanced education, training, or certification in a related discipline is an asset. 

Experience 

• Minimum of eight years of progressive enterprise application experience, including substantial Workday implementation, architecture, or complex solution design experience. 

• Demonstrated depth in multiple Workday domains and ability to provide architectural leadership across HCM, Payroll, Financial Management, security, integrations, reporting, and data with support from domain specialists. 

• Experience with large scale ERP transformation and complex integration environments. 

• Experience working with functional owners, implementation partners, senior stakeholders, and multidisciplinary delivery teams. 

• Experience in higher education, public sector, or another complex, regulated and decentralized environment is preferred. 

Knowledge/Skills/Abilities 

• Expert knowledge of Workday architecture, cross-module design, configuration governance, integrations, security, reporting, and data. 

• Strong understanding of enterprise architecture, cloud applications, APIs and middleware, identity and access management, data governance, and analytics ecosystems. 

• Ability to distinguish architectural authority from business ownership, delivery management, operational accountability, and regulatory interpretation. 

• Excellent communication, analysis, facilitation, influence, written documentation, and presentation skills. 

• Ability to make timely, risk-based architecture decisions and explain trade-offs to both technical and non-technical audiences. 

• Workday Pro and/or Partner certification required. 

• Experience with Canadian payroll, unionized environments, research administration, and higher education financial management. 

• Experience with Azure Integration Services or another enterprise integration platform. 

• Knowledge of agile delivery, DevOps, automated testing, and architecture decision record practices. 

Equity Statement
The University of Waterloo acknowledges that much of our work takes place on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg, and Haudenosaunee peoples. Our main campus is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land granted to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River. Our active work toward reconciliation takes place across our campuses through research, learning, teaching, and community building, and is coordinated within the Office of Indigenous Relations.
The University values the diverse and intersectional identities of its students, faculty, and staff. The University regards equity and diversity as an integral part of academic excellence and is committed to accessibility for all employees. The University of Waterloo seeks applicants who embrace our values of equity, anti-racism and inclusion.  As such, we encourage applications from candidates who have been historically disadvantaged and marginalized, including applicants who identify as First Nations, Métis and/or Inuk (Inuit), Black, racialized, a person with a disability, women and/or 2SLGBTQ+.
Positions are open to qualified candidates who are legally entitled to work in Canada.
The University of Waterloo is committed to accessibility for persons with disabilities. If you have any application, interview, or workplace accommodation requests, please contact Human Resources at [email protected] or 519-888-4567, ext. 45935.