Constant shuffle, old tooling, and years waiting for a promotion - Software Engineer Workday Employee Review

2.0
May 1, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Great people - Great office spaces - Great wellness initiatives - Great environmental consciousness

Cons

I had a great first couple years at this company although the XO backend made it very difficult to hire new developers and get things done. I enjoyed coming to work and solving problems. I hoped this would be the place I could work for many years to come. Then the re-orgs started. At first, it was once or twice a year. But for the past 2-3 years, it's been much more. The upper management has been disorganized. Every few months, they make a huge pivot. Great coworkers and managers have been laid off, even amazing managers getting laid off while on medical leave. I've been re-orged 4x in the past year. The first time, they wouldn't tell us our project was discontinued; we just woke up one Monday with an Outlook invite -- "Come to this meeting and work on this new project". Two months later, a manager finally admitted that my team's 5 years of work had been "de-prioritized." Managers have told me I was operating at a higher level for the past 4 years, and I met every one of the criteria on the promotion sheet. But even though I was put up for promotion, I never received it. I -- along with many others -- kept being shuffled to new departments and the new department says, "Sorry, we don't have enough slots and we already picked who is getting promoted." My new manager -- third one this year -- wants me to go up for a promotion again next year. I feel pretty dis-heartened about spending any more time on that. I am receiving less stock also, so I am effectively making less money than I was 5 years ago despite having much more responsibility. The most painful thing about this is the mis-match between how Workday management presents themselves and their actions. Workday has always called itself "the Workday family" and everyone is always doing things for charity and each other. But Management decisions are not held to any standard. Management decides to axe people's work with no explanation and then asks in a weekly survey how our wellbeing is. They decide to re-org us multiple times and then asks us if Workday is a "fun" place to work. We deal with financial stressors because of the decisions to not promote and pay fairly for our work -- and they ask on a scale of 0-10 how we'd recommend Workday to a friend.

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

avatar
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
avatar
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.
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All