Technical Lead, Application Development (Workday)

VERSANT (Nasdaq: VSNT) is an industry-changing media and entertainment business and home to trusted brands that shape culture, inform audiences, and build lasting connections. It operates across four core markets: political news and opinion, business news and personal finance, golf, and sports and genre entertainment. These markets are served through a powerful portfolio of iconic and innovative brands, including CNBC, MS NOW, USA Network, Golf Channel, Oxygen, E!, SYFY, and Versant's sports division USA Sports, along with complementary digital assets including Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow and GolfPass. Versant is seeking a Technical Lead, Core HR Systems to lead the design, development, deployment, and ongoing support of key components of Versant’s core HR ecosystem, centered on Workday. This role plays a critical hands-on lead DevOps position in delivering reliable, scalable solutions that support Versant’s workforce with delivering SaaS and custom solutions.   You will build and lead high-performing teams of engineers and solution leads responsible for platform architecture, delivery, integrations, and operational excellence. You will partner closely with stakeholders across Payroll, HR, Time, Broadcast and Sports Operations, Product, Data & Analytics, and Enterprise Technology to ensure HR & Payroll solutions are well-architected, secure, and aligned to business priorities.  Key Responsibilities  Platform Strategy & Architecture  Contribute to the definition and execution of Core HR & Payroll platform standards, patterns, and roadmaps across HR, Payroll, Time, & Broadcast & Sports Operations  Design and implement scalable, secure custom and SaaS solutions that meet defined business and technical requirements  Ensure solutions align with architecture standards and integrate cleanly with upstream and downstream systems  Evaluate and implement new technology capabilities (automation, AI features, data unification, packaged SaaS solutions) in support of product and business needs  Collaborate with architecture, product, and data teams to ensure consistency and reusability across platforms  Delivery & Operations Excellence  Lead end-to-end delivery for Core HR & Payroll initiatives, from technical design through build, test, deployment, and post-go-live support  Oversee technical delivery, release planning, and environment management to ensure stability and predictable releases  Enforce best practices in DevOps, code quality, documentation, and automated testing  Partner with integration, data, and infrastructure teams to ensure reliable interoperability and data flows  Monitor platform performance and operational health, driving root-cause resolution and continuous improvement  Partner & Team Leadership  Serve a critical role as the Development Lead for Versant’s planned transformation of their key HR & Payroll Systems   Build and lead a blended organization of internal engineers, architects, and contracted delivery partners both on and offshore  Serve as an accountable leader for contracted and managed service partners, ensuring delivery quality, cost effectiveness, and strategic alignment  Define clear scopes of work, service-level expectations, and governance processes with delivery partners  Foster a culture of collaboration, ownership, and learning - balancing partner execution with internal engineering capability  Mentor and develop team members, driving engagement, accountability, and professional development  Assist with managing budgets and resource plans, ensuring optimal allocation across initiatives  Governance, Security & Stakeholder Alignment  Ensure HR & Payroll solutions comply with corporate security, privacy, and regulatory requirements  Adhere to established governance processes including change management, version control, and documentation  Partner with Legal, Privacy, and Security teams to support secure handling of customer and business data  Provide regular status updates on delivery progress, risks, and operational health to technology and business stakeholders  Act as a trusted technical advisor for HR and Payroll engineering within cross-functional Basic Requirements  6+ years of experience in software engineering, with at least 3 years leading medium to large engineering delivery teams (both on and offshore)  4+ Year of in-depth experience was a Workday developer with at least one full implementation cycle of Workday HMC while serving in a senior lead developer capacity   Strong hands-on experience with Workday Studio, Enterprise Interface Builder (EIB), Core Connectors, and Workday APIs leveraging modern authentication protocols  Experience architecting, developing, and deploying custom solutions with the Workday Extend and/or the Workday Build Ecosystem  Strong hands-on experience designing and implementing data ingestion pipelines into Workday Prism for advanced analytics, reporting, and integrations.  Experience with Workday Job Scheduling tools and managing a large array of integrations  Experience configuring Workday’s portal self-service experience including role-based landing pages, worklets, announcements, quick actions, and business processes.  Proven experience delivering complex enterprise applications implementations with multiple integrations to multiple SaaS platforms.  Strong experience delivering HR & Payroll solutions, especially with integrating HR Data and Benefits  Experience leading agile teams and working within CI/CD and DevOps delivery models  Strong communication skills with the ability to collaborate across technical and non-technical stakeholders  Excellent communication, problem-solving, and stakeholder management skills  Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field  Desired Characteristics  Experience in media, entertainment, or consumer-facing digital businesses  Experience delivering HR & Payroll so