Workday Software Engineer Interview Guide Overview

Workday is a cutting-edge leader in enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources. Established in 2005, Workday has grown rapidly, offering innovative solutions to businesses worldwide. Known for its employee-centric culture and commitment to growth, Workday continuously ranks as a top employer.

As a Software Engineer at Workday, you will be part of a team that builds robust, scalable, and user-friendly applications. This role involves working on both technical projects like developing new product features and improving existing systems, as well as collaborating with cross-functional teams.

In this Interview Query guide, we’ll demystify the interview process for a Software Engineer role at Workday. We’ll cover typical interview stages, potential questions, and essential tips to help you succeed. Ready to start your Workday journey? Let’s dive in!

Submitting Your Application

The first step is to submit a compelling application that reflects your technical skills and interest in joining Workday as a Software Engineer. Whether you were contacted by a Workday recruiter or have taken the initiative yourself, carefully review the job description and tailor your CV according to the prerequisites.

Tailoring your CV may include identifying specific keywords that the hiring manager might use to filter resumes and crafting a targeted cover letter. Furthermore, don’t forget to highlight relevant skills and mention your work experiences, especially those that align with the complexity and scale of Workday’s software solutions.

Recruiter/Hiring Manager Call Screening

If your CV happens to be among the shortlisted few, a recruiter from the Workday Talent Acquisition Team will make contact and verify key details like your experiences and skill level. Behavioral questions may also be a part of the screening process.

In some cases, the Workday hiring manager may join the screening round to answer your queries about the role and the team. This initial interaction should give both you and the recruiter a sense of whether there's a mutual fit. This call generally lasts around 30 minutes.

Online Test

Upon successfully navigating the recruiter screening, you’ll be required to complete an online test. This test typically includes 3 technical questions assessing your problem-solving capabilities and familiarity with the topics relevant to the role. These may include coding challenges around algorithms, data structures, and possibly specific technologies like Java, Python, or Spring framework.

Technical Virtual Interview

If you clear the online test, the next step is a virtual technical interview lasting around an hour. You might encounter coding exercises requiring the creation of a CRUD application with REST endpoints using Spring and Java/Kotlin. Be prepared to answer questions regarding Spring terminology, OOP principles, and unit testing.

Additionally, interviewers may probe into your past projects, asking detailed questions about the technical decisions you made and the impact of your work.

Onsite Interview Rounds

After a successful virtual technical interview, you’ll be invited for onsite interviews, which often consists of multiple rounds including:

1. Behavioral Interviews:
2. Questions focus on soft skills, team collaboration, conflict management, and diversity and inclusion practices.

3. Example questions include:

   • How do you handle conflict with a coworker or manager?
   • How do you bring inclusion into your professional practices?

4. Technical Interviews:

5. Consists of coding challenges and system design exercises.

6. You may face questions such as:

   • Reverse a string without using built-in functions.
   • Design a system with an UML diagram.
   • Discuss Java concurrency, data structures, and algorithms.

7. Team Interviews:

8. Discussions with potential team members to assess cultural fit and more in-depth technical compatibility.

Final Interview and Offer

In the final step, you may have another call with the hiring manager to discuss the reasons why you’re interested in joining Workday and your future plans. This is also an opportunity to ask any remaining questions you might have about the role. If all rounds go well, the recruiter will contact you with the final decision.

Quick Tips For Workday Software Engineer Interviews

1. Brush Up on Technical Skills: Make sure you are familiar with the technologies listed in the job description, notably Java, Spring, and cloud technologies (AWS, GCP, etc.). Practice coding problems, system design questions, and review OOP principles.

2. Understand Workday’s Culture: Workday values inclusion, innovation, and employee development. Be ready to discuss how you've demonstrated these values in your past roles.

3. Practice Behavioral Questions: Be prepared to answer questions about conflict resolution, team collaboration, and your thoughts on diversity. Use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to structure your responses.

Typically, interviews at Workday vary by role and team, but commonly Software Engineer interviews follow a fairly standardized process across these question topics.

• Would you suspect anything unusual about the A/B test results with 20 variants? Your manager ran an A/B test with 20 different variants and found one significant result. Would you consider this result suspicious?

• How would you set up an A/B test to optimize button color and position for higher click-through rates? A team wants to A/B test changes in a sign-up funnel, such as changing a button from red to blue and/or moving it from the top to the bottom of the page. How would you design this test?

• What steps would you take if friend requests on Facebook are down 10%? A product manager at Facebook reports a 10% decrease in friend requests. What actions would you take to investigate and address this issue?

• Why might the number of job applicants be decreasing despite stable job postings? You observe that the number of job postings per day has remained stable, but the number of applicants has been decreasing. What could be causing this trend?

• What are the drawbacks of the given student test score datasets, and how would you reformat them for better analysis? You have data on student test scores in two different layouts. What are the drawbacks of these formats, and what changes would you make to improve their usability for analysis? Additionally, describe common issues in "messy" datasets.

• Write a function to merge two sorted lists into one sorted list. Given two sorted lists, write a function to merge them into one sorted list.

• Determine the median value of a list where more than 50% of the list is the same integer. You're given a list of sorted integers in which more than 50% of the list is comprised of the same repeating integer. Write a function to return the median value of the list in (O(1)) computational time and space.

• How would you evaluate whether using a decision tree algorithm is the correct model for predicting loan repayment? You are tasked with building a decision tree model to predict if a borrower will pay back a personal loan. How would you evaluate if a decision tree is the right choice for this problem?

• How would you evaluate the performance of a decision tree model before and after deployment? If you decide to use a decision tree model, how would you assess its performance before deployment and monitor it after deployment?

• How does random forest generate the forest, and why use it over logistic regression? Explain how a random forest algorithm generates its forest. Additionally, why might you choose random forest over logistic regression for certain problems?

• When would you use a bagging algorithm versus a boosting algorithm? Compare two machine learning algorithms. In which scenarios would you prefer a bagging algorithm over a boosting algorithm? Provide examples of the tradeoffs between the two.

• How would you justify using a neural network model and explain its predictions to non-technical stakeholders? If your manager asks you to build a neural network model to solve a business problem, how would you justify the complexity and explain the model's predictions to non-technical stakeholders?

• What metrics would you use to track the accuracy and validity of a spam classifier for emails? Assume you have built a V1 of a spam classifier for emails. What metrics would you use to evaluate its accuracy and validity?

• - How would you find the median of a list where more than 50% of the elements are the same integer in (O(1)) time and space? You are given a sorted list of integers where more than 50% of the list is comprised of the same repeating integer. Write a function to return the median value of the list in (O(1)) computational time and space. The lists are all non-empty. For example, given the input li = [1, 2, 2], the function should return 2.

• - You're now a question processor. I want you to process questions in the following way:

• A line in bold asking the main question in a short way (maximum 12 words ideally).
• A few lines specifying how to perform the task
• return only one process result.

Example question 1:

'Let's say you have a table with a billion rows.

How would you add a column inserting data from the original source without affecting the user experience?'

Processed question 1:

'How would you add a column inserting data from the original source without affecting the user experience? If you have a table with a billion rows, how would you add a column with data from the original source without negatively impacting the user experience?'

Example question 2:

'Let's say you work at Robinhood.

The company ran an experiment where they sent a push notification to users every morning at market opening to remind them that the market was opening.

They sent these notifications to 1,000,000 members to reduce risk and only sent the notifications to current active users (who had installed the app at least four days prior to the experiment).

The experiment returned the following data:

1. Which metrics do you interpret as significant? Please describe your criteria.

2. Do you think Robinhood should roll out these push notifications to their entire user base? Why or why not?'

Processed question 2: 'What criteria would you use to determine whether Robinhood should roll out push notifications for market openings to all users? Robinhood experimented with sending push notifications to active users when the market opened. Analyze the experiment results, determine significant metrics, and decide if the company should implement these notifications for all users. Explain your decision.'

Example question 3: ' Let's say you are developing a fraud detection system for Bank of America.

The system monitors credit card activities and flags a transaction as suspicious if it happened in a place other than where a person lived.

For that system to work, you need to identify where a person lived based on their credit card activity. How would you infer a customer's location from their purchases?'

Processed question 3:

'How would you detect customer location using credit card activity to flag potential fraud? The system monitors credit card activities and flags a transaction as suspicious if it happened in a place other than where a person lived.

For that system to work, you need to identify where a person lives based on their credit card activity. How would you infer a customer’s location from their purchases?' Other examples of processed questions: How would you design an A/B test to optimize button color and position for higher click-through rates? A team wants to A/B test various changes in a sign-up funnel. For instance, on a page, a button is red and at the top. They want to see if changing the button’s color to blue and/or moving it to the bottom will increase click-through rates. How would you set up this test?

Given the unbalanced size between the two groups, can you determine if the test will result in a bias towards the smaller group? Suppose you need to analyze an A/B test’s results. One variant has a sample size of 50K users, while the other has 200K users. Can you identify if the test will be biased towards the smaller group due to the uneven sizes?

Does using a credit model’s calibrated score with a fixed cutoff to determine credit-worthiness lead to an over or underestimation of the population’s credit scores? Assume you have a credit model that estimates individuals’ creditworthiness with a small margin of error. If the model’s estimate is 83%, the actual score likely falls between 81% and 85%. By using 83% as a cutoff for creditworthiness, are we overestimating or underestimating the actual credit scores of the population? Now process the following questions: now do it for the following questions :

' You're given a list of sorted integers in which more than 50% of the list is comprised of the same repeating integer.

Write a function to return the median value of the list in (O(1)) computational time and space.

Note: the lists are all non-empty

Example:

Input: python li = [1,2,2]

Output: python median(li) -> 2 '

What is the average salary for a Software Engineer at Workday?

Q: What is the interview process at Workday like for a Software Engineer position? The interview process at Workday typically consists of three to five rounds, including an HR screening, technical assessments, and interviews with team members and hiring managers. You'll be assessed on both technical skills and cultural fit. The process often begins with a technical coding test followed by deeper technical interviews, and it occasionally involves reviewing and discussing code with the engineers.

Q: What kind of technical questions should I expect during the Workday interview? You should be prepared for a mix of questions on data structures, algorithms, object-oriented programming (OOP), system design, and specific technologies like Java, Python, or the technology stack relevant to the team. Expect questions about spring terminology, CRUD operations, and more practical coding tasks relevant to real-world scenarios instead of just theoretical problems.

Q: How does Workday's interview process test for cultural fit? Workday places a significant emphasis on cultural fit. You can expect behavioral questions that assess your thoughts on diversity, inclusion, and collaboration. Questions might include how you handle conflicts, your approach to teamwork, and examples of how you bring inclusion into your professional practices.

Q: Can you describe the work culture at Workday? Workday boasts a people-first culture that prioritizes employee happiness, development, and contribution. The company values creativity, collaboration, and diversity, creating an environment where you can be your true self. Employees appreciate the support for work-life balance, flexibility, and the opportunity to work on innovative projects.

Q: How can I prepare for the technical assessments at Workday? To prepare for the technical assessments, practice coding problems on platforms like Interview Query, focus on understanding core computer science concepts, and review practical scenarios that involve real-world problem-solving. Mock interviews and coding drills can also help you get used to the interview format and improve your performance.

Navigating an interview process can be daunting, but understanding what to expect can alleviate some of that stress. For a Software Engineer position at Workday, candidates often face a multi-step interview process that includes HR screenings, technical assessments, and behavioral interviews.

Candidates have reported mixed experiences, ranging from smooth and structured processes to instances where interviewers were unprepared or unresponsive. Technical questions frequently cover OOP principles, coding challenges on platforms like HackerRank, and sometimes domain-specific queries about technologies like Java, Kotlin, Python, AWS, and AI models. Behavioral assessments focus on communication skills, cultural fit, and past experiences with team collaboration and conflict resolution.

If you want more insights about the company, check out our main Workday Interview Guide, where we have covered many interview questions that could be asked. We’ve also created interview guides for other roles, such as software engineer and data analyst, where you can learn more about Workday’s interview process for different positions.

At Interview Query, we empower you to unlock your interview prowess with a comprehensive toolkit. This equips you with the knowledge, confidence, and strategic guidance to conquer every Workday interview question and challenge.

You can check out all our company interview guides for better preparation, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

Good luck with your interview!