Job Description & Details
This is a specialized, high-impact Workday role where you'll own the grant administration and financial workflows for a major ERP ecosystem. If you enjoy untangling complex sponsor compliance rules and optimizing intricate payroll accounting structures without getting bogged down by endless meetings, this is a solid gig.
What You'll Actually Be Doing
Expect to spend your days acting as the critical bridge between technical configuration and financial stakeholders. You'll be deep in the weeds designing and tweaking Workday Grants components, configuring payroll accounting to ensure funds distribute correctly across cost centers, and handling Tier 2/3 support when integrations break. Much of your time will go toward root-cause analysis, cleaning up data integrity issues, and finding clever ways to inject intelligent workflow automation into legacy processes.
The Core Tech Stack
You need absolute fluency in the Workday ecosystem, specifically focusing on Grants, Finance, and Payroll Accounting modules. Hands-on experience building and troubleshooting integrations using EIBs, Core Connectors, and Studio-based solutions is non-negotiable. They also expect you to know your way around custom validations, security models, and advanced reporting since compliance and audit readiness are huge priorities here.
Interview Expectations
Expect them to grill you on a complex scenario where a Workday integration fails during a payroll run tied to multiple sponsored research grants, forcing you to trace the error across EIBs and custom reports under a tight deadline. They'll also likely ask you to explain how you handle conflicting demands from non-technical grant managers who want custom workflows that clash with standard security models. The interviewer is trying to figure out if you can translate rigid system constraints into practical business solutions while keeping stakeholders calm.
Application Advice
Skip the generic project management fluff and make sure your resume explicitly highlights your hands-on Workday configuration chops. Mirror the specific terminology from the job description by spelling out your experience with sponsored project compliance, indirect cost recovery, and Studio integrations. If you've worked in complex healthcare, higher education, or similarly matrixed environments, put that right at the top to clear the automated screening filters.