Don't make the same mistake I did - Applications Developer Workday Employee Review

2.0
Oct 23, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Good culture, fun co-workers - Great work life balance - Stock is doing well, good ESPP plan, stock refreshers - Generation Workday new grad program is a good way to make friends

Cons

Workday’s App dev teams are the product engineering teams and they build the app using a propriety GUI-based language called Xpresso. The tools teams work on infrastructure and they use traditional programming languages like java and scala. This review is about app dev only. Hate to say it but working in Xpresso is a very bad career move for engineers coming straight out of college. Unless you are proactive and work on side projects or continue to learn in your free time, you will forget your traditional coding skills. You will also not be exposed to industry-standard practices and tools by working in a proprietary stack. If you ever decide to leave, you'll likely struggle to find a traditional coding job. Workday probably has good retention rates for app devs not because app devs don't want to leave, but because they can't leave. They tell you that you’ll still learn high-level concepts like design and OOP but I don’t think it’s enough to make you a competent engineer. They also tell you that you can eventually transfer to a tools team, but it seems like you have to spend several years doing app dev first before you can switch. Also, I think the salary for app devs is below industry average.

Explore other reviews about Workday

5.0
May 28, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good culture and product, pay is nice

Cons

Not too many to think of

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Workday Response
1w
Thank you for sharing your experience at Workday. It is fantastic to hear you've enjoyed the culture. We are pleased to hear life as a Workmate is a good one!
4.0
Mar 31, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great people, benefits, culture, and pay. Lots of "workmates" with long tenures (10+ years). I truly wanted to retire from Workday!

Cons

Leadership changes freaked a lot of people out. Things felt unstable within the org for the last year (2025). The culture shifted from one that focused on employee growth to adopt all AI at all costs, and do it yesterday! It was extremely stressful to learn so much, so quickly, and create your own use cases and custom workflows - then to ultimately be laid off despite significant contributions.

1
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Workday Response
2mo
Thank you for your valuable input. At Workday, we pride ourselves on fostering a transparent workplace, maintaining the highest ethical standards, and promoting innovation. It's heartening to hear about your positive journey as a Workmate. We continue to be committed to delivering exceptional experiences for our Workmates.
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