Workday Data Engineer Interview Guide

The Workday data engineer loop, round by round: what each stage tests, example questions with the guidance interviewers actually score, the mistakes that sink strong candidates, and how to prepare.

Last updated: July 31, 2026Proudly published by: Jeff Wahl

1 real Workday interview questions

Reported by candidates from real loops, tagged by domain, round, level, and year. Expand for what the round is scoring.

SQLL6 · 2025

Calculate the click-through conversion rate: users who added product to cart after viewing divided by total who viewed

Phone screen · screen sql

Tables: view_logs(log_id, user_id, product_id), add_to_cart_logs(log_id, user_id, product_id). LEFT JOIN view_logs to add_to_cart_logs on user_id and product_id. Compute COUNT(DISTINCT cart users) / COUNT(DISTINCT view users) as conversion rate. Must handle NULLs from LEFT JOIN correctly.

Try a Workday-style SQL round

Find every user active on 3 or more CONSECUTIVE days. This gaps-and-islands shape shows up in nearly every DE SQL round. Edit the query and run it against the seed data.

	/* Users active on 3+ consecutive days. */
	/* Hint: date minus a per-user ROW_NUMBER is constant within a streak. */
	WITH streaks AS (
	SELECT
	user_id,
	activity_date,
	activity_date - CAST(
	(ROW_NUMBER() OVER (
	PARTITION BY user_id
	ORDER BY activity_date
	))
	AS INT
	) AS grp
	FROM user_sessions
	)

	SELECT
	user_id
	FROM streaks
	GROUP BY user_id, grp
	HAVING COUNT(*) >= 3

Workday is hiring data engineers now

The roles behind this loop. Prep against the levels and locations they are actually filling.

Hiring now

Workday data engineer · live from career pages

open roles

Washington DC

top metro

As part of Workday’s Data platform team, you will be responsible for building, enhancing, and extending our Spark and Trino-based large-scale distributed data processing platform in the cloud.

L5Vancouver29d ago

We’re Platypus, an AI/ML-centered data engineering team and our goal is to ingest, manage, derive, and serve data across Workday’s growing suite of AI/ML features.

L5Vancouver36d ago

Compute Infrastructure Scaling: Design, configure, and maintain the foundational compute engines and query layers (e.g., AWS EMR clusters, AWS Athena, Redshift) utilized by downstream data engineers, analysts, and BI tools.

L5Reston48d ago

Design, build, and secure high-throughput APIs, data connectors, and reverse-ETL patterns to sync data back into business systems (e.g., CRMs, ERPs, marketing automation).

L5Reston48d ago

New postings per week

6/8

6/22

6/29

week beginning · ~3 weeks of data

Where they hire

Washington DC

Levels hiring

L54

Updated Jul 31, 20265 open listings across 1 city

Workday compensation and culture

The numbers, tech stack, and team structure live on the company overview.

Data engineering at Workday→

The role, comp by level, tech stack, teams, and culture signals.

Compare Workday with other data engineering employers

How the role, pay, and loop stack up against peer companies.

Data engineering at Airbnb→

Compare the role, comp, and interview loop.

Data engineering at Amazon→

Compare the role, comp, and interview loop.

Data engineering at Apple→

Compare the role, comp, and interview loop.

Data engineering at Databricks→

Compare the role, comp, and interview loop.

02 / Why practice

Prepare at Workday interview difficulty

01
Reading a solution is not the same as writing one
Every engineer who has frozen on a query they had read a dozen times knows the gap. The only preparation that closes it is producing the answer yourself, under time, before the interview does it for you
02
76% of hiring managers reject on the coding task, not the resume
From HackerRank's 2024 Developer Skills Report. Candidates who look strong on paper still fail the live screen if they haven't done timed, executable practice
03
5 problem shapes cover 80% of data engineer loops
Dedup, sessionization, top-N-per-group, slowly-changing dimensions, partition tricks. Writing the shapes by hand turns the unfamiliar into pattern recognition

Practice Workday-level SQL

Related Guides

Data Engineering at Workday→

The Workday DE role, comp, tech stack, and culture.

DE Interview Prep Guide→

Complete preparation framework for data engineering interviews.

Data Modeling Questions→

Star schema, SCD, grain definition, and normalization.