Senior Manager, AI Innovation & Research - Finance
One Model
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About the Team
The Finance AI (FinAI) Innovation Center team at Workday is a dedicated group of experts – data scientists, machine learning engineers, data engineers, and program managers – operating with a startup-like drive to create significant value for Finance through AI.We go beyond basic efficiency gains, focusing on developing innovative AI solutions that unlock new capabilities and insights for the CFO organization. Our mission is to reinvent finance processes, improve strategic decision-making, and drive meaningful value through advanced AI applications. Each member is accountable for identifying and delivering these high-value use cases. Ultimately, our work aims to empower the oCFO with innovative AI, enabling them to operate more strategically and effectively.
About the Role
As the Senior Manager of AI Innovation & Research within Finance, you will lead our expert team to conceptualize, develop, and deploy impactful AI solutions that transform finance processes. Accountable for the full AI solution lifecycle – from ideation and requirements to development, implementation, and support – you will lead a geographically diverse team spread across the US and India.
A key part of this role involves influencing Workday Product Management on potential AI features for Workday Financials, using our internal innovations to shape future product offerings for customers.
Primary Responsibilities:
Research Smart Finance AI Uses: Proactively research industry trends for use cases where AI can provide value to our finance operations, rethink how we do things internally within finance, and make our processes and strategies better, using advanced statistical analysis and machine learning algorithms for finance-related challenges.
Understand Our Finance Work: Develop expertise of our current finance processes (like Accounting, Financial Planning, Tax, etc.) within the context of being a SaaS company.
Understand Our Business & Products: Thoroughly learn about Workday’s products particularly Financial products, how we price them, how commissions work, and our compensation strategies to spot opportunities where AI can generate positive value.
Prioritize & Show the Payoff: Figure out which AI use cases are most important and realistic (considering the technical side and data needs). Clearly show the potential return on investment and benefits.
Explain & Sell Your Ideas: Create clear and persuasive proposals that explain the AI ideas, their potential benefits (backed by data where possible), what resources we'll need, and a basic technical reason why the AI approach makes sense.
Own AI Development: Oversee the team that builds and tests our AI ideas, offering your technical guidance on data analysis, choosing the right machine learning methods, designing experiments, architecting solutions, and measuring success.
Work Across Teams: Collaborate closely with our tech, product, and data teams to successfully put the tested and approved AI solutions into our real-world finance processes, clearly explaining the technical aspects.
Lead & Coach the Team: Manage and mentor our data scientists and data engineers, providing technical leadership and encourage a culture of trying new things and learning.
About You
You're a highly motivated and entrepreneurial leader who thrives on solving complex problems with fresh, creative thinking. You enjoy diving into intricate data challenges and working closely with a team to deliver real impact. You can clearly explain technical ideas to anyone and are driven to make a tangible difference in how finance operates through innovative AI solutions.
Required Qualifications:
Minimum of 8 years hands-on experience in efficiently driving data science or machine learning use cases, with a primary focus in the domain of finance and accounting.
Strong understanding of software development lifecycle (SDLC) and standard methodologies for coding, design, testing, and deployment.
Bachelor’s Degree is required.
Other Qualifications:
Extensive knowledge of core finance functions (e.g., Accounting, FP&A, Tax, Treasury, Procurement) specifically within a SaaS business model and its unique financial considerations.
Master's Degree in Statistics, Applied Mathematics, or an equivalent quantitative field.
Solid grasp of statistical principles, including hypothesis testing, regression analysis, time series forecasting, and other relevant statistical techniques.
Extensive knowledge of various machine learning algorithms (supervised, unsupervised, reinforcement learning), including model selection, training, evaluation, and deployment methodologies.
Understanding of data pipelines, data warehousing concepts, and data governance principles relevant to building and deploying machine learning models.
Ability to identify strategic opportunities where AI can significantly improve finance functions, develop clear implementation plans, and quantify potential financial benefits (e.g., return on investment, cost reduction, efficiency gains) using data-driven forecasting.
Ability to articulate sophisticated technical concepts related to AI/ML clearly and effectively to both technical teams and non-technical business partners, including explaining model logic and performance metrics.
Validated experience leading the end-to-end lifecycle of technology projects, from conceptualization and requirements gathering to deployment and monitoring.
Demonstrated ability to lead and mentor a team of data scientists and data engineers, providing technical guidance in statistical analysis and machine learning, and fostering a collaborative and innovative environment.
Staying current with the latest advancements in AI research and their potential applications within the finance domain.
Workday Pay Transparency Statement
The annualized base salary ranges for the primary location and any additional locations are listed below. Workday pay ranges vary based on work location. As a part of the total compensation package, this role may be eligible for the Workday Bonus Plan or a role-specific commission/bonus, as well as annual refresh stock grants. Recruiters can share more detail during the hiring process. Each candidate’s compensation offer will be based on multiple factors including, but not limited to, geography, experience, skills, job duties, and business need, among other things. For more information regarding Workday’s comprehensive benefits, please click here.
Primary Location: USA.CA.Pleasanton
Our Approach to Flexible Work
With Flex Work, we’re combining the best of both worlds: in-person time and remote. Our approach enables our teams to deepen connections, maintain a strong community, and do their best work. We know that flexibility can take shape in many ways, so rather than a number of required days in-office each week, we simply spend at least half (50%) of our time each quarter in the office or in the field with our customers, prospects, and partners (depending on role). This means you'll have the freedom to create a flexible schedule that caters to your business, team, and personal needs, while being intentional to make the most of time spent together. Those in our remote "home office" roles also have the opportunity to come together in our offices for important moments that matter.
Pursuant to applicable Fair Chance law, Workday will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
Workday is an Equal Opportunity Employer including individuals with disabilities and protected veterans.
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