Workday Release Manager

Role Summary:

We are looking for an experienced Workday Release Manager to lead end-to-end Workday release planning, governance, and deployment activities. The ideal candidate should have strong expertise in Workday release management, impact assessment, release governance, stakeholder communication, and coordinating cross-functional teams in global SaaS environments.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end Workday release planning, coordination, and execution.
• Manage release governance, Change Advisory Board (CAB) meetings, and Go/No-Go decision forums.
• Assess business and technical impacts of Workday releases and ensure deployment readiness.
• Coordinate release activities across HR, Payroll, IT, business teams, and external vendors.
• Manage release risks, dependencies, issues, and mitigation plans.
• Review Workday release notes and translate changes into actionable business and technical requirements.
• Drive continuous improvement by implementing lessons learned and scalable release governance processes.

Required Skills

Strong understanding of Workday release management, including:

• Preview Tenants

• Feature Activation

• Backward Compatibility

• Known Issue Management

• Experience with Workday HCM modules:

• Core HCM

• Payroll (including Integrations)

• Talent

• Absence

• Working knowledge of Workday Integration Framework:

• Workday Studio

• Enterprise Interface Builder (EIB)

• Core Connectors

• Ability to analyze Workday release notes and perform business and technical impact assessments.

• Experience using Workday Community for release documentation, Known Issues, and Workday Brainstorm.

Program & Governance Skills

• Experience with Release Management frameworks such as ITIL, SAFe, or equivalent.
• Strong experience leading Change Advisory Boards (CAB) and Go/No-Go governance.
• Experience managing cross-functional and cross-geography release dependencies.
• Strong risk identification, escalation, and mitigation planning skills.

Key Competencies

• Ownership & Accountability
• Structured Decision-Making
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
• Risk Management
• Stakeholder Communication
• Continuous Improvement