Director of Applications, Digital Workday Ecosystem

Key Responsibilities

The Director will lead and build the technology teams that strategize, design, deliver, and support the Workday ecosystem and tech, with accountability across the following areas:

Strategy & Vision

• Lead the overall Workday technology strategy, aligning platform capabilities with business, HR, and Finance objectives.
• Establish the vision, roadmap, and governance for Workday technology delivery, ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture standards, transformation initiatives, and long-term business priorities.
• Provide strategic leadership across Workday Integrations, Security, Extend development, tenant management, and release management functions.
• Communicate technical direction, risks, and solution options to senior leadership in a clear, consultative manner.

Operational Support Model

• Develop and mature the operational support model for Workday integrations, security, Extend, tenants, and releases, defining tiers, escalation paths, and on-call expectations.
• Provide oversight for day-to-day technical support across all Workday functional areas, ensuring incidents and service requests are triaged, prioritized, and resolved within agreed service levels.
• Establish clear hand-offs between project/build teams and support teams, ensuring new and changed solutions transition into production with appropriate documentation, runbooks, and knowledge transfer.
• Define and monitor key support metrics - ticket volume, mean time to resolution, backlog health, repeat-incident rate, and customer satisfaction - and use them to drive continuous improvement.
• Partner with the Service Desk, change management, and incident management functions to ensure Workday support is integrated with enterprise ITSM processes.
• Drive root-cause analysis and proactive problem management to reduce recurring issues and improve platform stability.
• Balance support workload with project and enhancement demand, ensuring the team has appropriate capacity, skills coverage, and resilience across all technical areas.

Team Leadership & Development

• Build and lead a high-performing Workday technology team, including developers, integration engineers, security analysts, administrators, and support resources.
• Mentor and develop technical professionals, setting clear expectations for quality, responsiveness, and continuous improvement.
• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, innovation, and customer service across the Workday support organization.

Operating Model & Process Standardization

• Evolve and standardize the Workday technology team's structure, roles, and responsibilities to align with platform priorities, scale, and the maturity of the function.
• Define and document clear team charters, role definitions, and RACI models so internal team members and business partners understand who owns what.
• Solidify and standardize core processes - including intake, prioritization, integration delivery, security administration, Extend development, tenant management, release management, and incident/defect handling - to drive consistency, transparency, and predictability.
• Establish and communicate operating norms, service expectations, and engagement models with HR, Finance, IT, and other business partners.
• Continuously improve and right-size processes based on feedback, performance metrics, and evolving Workday platform capabilities.
• Establish and enforce governance standards, development best practices, and documentation for all Workday technical activities
• Set standards and controls for documentation, code quality, testing, deployment, defect management, and support handoffs.
• Monitor service performance, identify risks and dependencies, and drive proactive remediation to improve stability, security, and user experience.

Integrations

• Oversee the design, development, testing, and support of Workday integrations (inbound and outbound), ensuring solutions are scalable, secure, maintainable, and aligned to business and technical requirements.
• Ensure integration reliability, performance, and data integrity across the Workday ecosystem and connected systems.

Security & Compliance

• Own the Workday security model and governance, including role strategy, role-based access controls, separation of duties, audit support, and risk mitigation.
• Ensure system compliance with internal policies and external regulations (e.g., SOX, data privacy).

Workday Extend & Custom Development

• Direct Workday Extend strategy and development efforts, including solution prioritization, platform governance, and adoption of reusable design standards.
• Ensure delivery of high-quality custom applications that enhance user experience and extend business functionality.

Tenant & Release Management

• Manage tenant strategy and environment operations across production, preview, and sandbox tenants, including refresh planning, configuration consistency, and issue resolution.
• Lead Workday biannual release management, coordinating impact assessments, testing strategy, business readiness, change planning, and adoption of new features.

Stakeholder & Vendor Management

• Partner with HR, Finance, IT, Research and business stakeholders to prioritize demand, resolve escalations, and ensure Workday solutions support operational needs and long-term goals.
• Manage vendor relationships, implementation partners, and third-party tools supporting the Workday ecosystem.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field; Master's degree preferred.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in enterprise applications or HRIS/ERP technology, with at least 5 years in a leadership role managing technical teams.
• Demonstrated experience leading the technical delivery and support of Workday, including hands-on or team-leadership exposure to Workday Integrations (Studio, EIB, Core Connectors, web services), Security, Extend, tenant management, and biannual release management.
• Proven experience building and leading high-performing Workday technology teams, including developers, integration engineers, security analysts, and administrators.
• Strong understanding of Workday security architecture, role-based access, separation of duties, and audit/compliance practices (e.g., SOX, data privacy).
• Experience managing third-party vendors, implementation partners, and external consultants supporting Workday delivery and operations.
• Solid grounding in software development lifecycle practices, including code quality, testing, deployment, defect management, and documentation standards.
• Experience operating in matrixed environments and partnering with HR, Finance, IT, and business stakeholders.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office tools (Excel, PowerPoint, Teams); familiarity with ITSM, change, and project tools (e.g., ServiceNow, Jira, Smartsheet, Workfront) preferred.

Working Model

• M-F Eastern Business Hours required
• Hybrid role requires Onsite 1-2x weekly at least, with additional meetings in office as needed
• Must be available and flexible to be in office
• Business needs, leadership meetings and stakeholder meetings will dictate onsite workdays

Supervisory & Financial Duties

• Directly supervises the Workday technology team, including integration engineers/developers, security analysts, Extend developers, administrators, and support resources.
• Responsible for hiring, performance management, coaching, and career development of direct reports.
• Oversees consultants, implementation partners, and contractor resources supporting Workday integration, security, Extend, and release work.
• Accountable for managing operating budgets and project budgets within assigned portfolio.
• Partners with Finance and Digital leadership on annual budgeting, forecasting, and capital planning.
• Demonstrates fiscal responsibility by effectively using Mass General Brigham resources and ensuring vendor and contract spend is aligned to value delivered.

Skills for Success

• Strong technical leadership and ability to set direction across Workday integrations, security, Extend, tenant, and release management functions.
• Proven ability to build, mentor, and inspire technical teams, with a focus on quality, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, including the ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear, consultative communication for senior leadership and business partners.
• Strategic thinker who can balance long-term platform vision with day-to-day operational discipline.
• Strong problem-solving, risk management, and decision-making capabilities, particularly in complex integration, security, and release scenarios.
• Demonstrated commitment to governance, standards, and operational excellence.
• Ability to drive accountability and outcomes across teams without direct authority in matrixed environments.
• Customer-service mindset with a focus on platform stability, security, and end-user experience.