Principal Product Manager - People Technologies

Okta is seeking a Principal Product Manager, People Technologies to join its Business Technology Organization, reporting to the Director of People Technologies. This strategic role focuses on driving the evolution of Workday HR capabilities while ensuring an exceptional experience for internal users across the company. The ideal candidate will guide the People Technology Delivery team, managing product strategy, roadmaps, and backlogs across a range of Workday modules including Core HR, Compensation, Benefits, Absence, Time Tracking, Payroll, Advanced Compensation, and Talent Management.  This is an exciting opportunity to influence the future of digital HR at scale, helping to deliver a modern, integrated employee experience powered by Workday.  If you have a passion for problem-solving, automation, and transformation, we’d love to hear from you!

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead, shape and execute the People Technology roadmap, ensuring alignment with stakeholders, technical feasibility, and business value.
• Partner with executive leadership and business functional leads to develop and implement a unified, strategic plan that drives organizational success.
• Engage with internal stakeholders to understand business challenges, prioritize needs based on impact, and translate them into actionable initiatives.
• Drive end-to-end process standardization across all Workday modules, ensuring consistency and efficiency.
• Evaluate emerging trends and technologies in the HR tech landscape.
• Establish and enforce data governance best practices to maintain data accuracy, consistency, and compliance across the platform.
• Lead platform-level change management efforts, ensuring smooth and aligned transitions across all People Technology solutions. Address resistance and ensure high adoption rates.
• Evaluate and optimize the value of People Technology investments, ensuring continuous improvements and new features deliver maximum business impact.
• Design and maintain process flows for each functional area, ensuring clarity and standardization across
• Evaluate and manage various systems’s patch releases, guiding the seamless adoption (including review, testing, and implementation) and integration of new features to enhance system capabilities.
• Collaborate with HR, IT, Finance, Legal, and business leaders to gather requirements and prioritize needs.
• Support Backlog management, Prioritization, and Agile ceremonies (Planning, Sprint Planning, Retrospectives), ensuring alignment with business priorities and system health.
• Work closely with security & Compliance teams to ensure ongoing compliance with corporate security policies and data protection standards.
• Own People Technology's product portfolio, managing the full lifecycle of systems and driving value from them.
• Foster a culture of cross-functional collaboration, ensuring that Workday is effectively utilized across all teams and departments.
• Lead the prioritization of product issues, defects, and enhancements, ensuring quick resolution and the integration of quality throughout the development lifecycle.  Balance innovation with short-term delivery.
• Collaborate with HR, communications and training teams to develop and implement comprehensive training plans, ensuring continuous user engagement with new features and system improvements.
• Establish a consistent feedback loop with support teams to drive continuous system optimization and user satisfaction.

Qualifications:

• Minimum of 12 years of experience in People Technologies, especially in Workday and its ecosystems.
• Proven leadership experience in driving complex HCM technology initiatives across multiple stakeholder groups and partner teams.
• Extensive background in capturing business requirements and implementing best-practice in Workday configurations to optimize system functionality.
• Demonstrated experience working at a senior level, with the ability to communicate effectively with executives and vendor partners.
• Experience with cross-functional leadership across HR, Legal, Finance functions
• Excellent decision-making abilities, balancing risk, speed, and long-term value to drive impactful solutions.
• Exceptional analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to quickly identify and resolve complex challenges.
• Outstanding verbal and written communication skills, capable of translating complex technical concepts for diverse audiences.
• Strong Agile mindset, with hands-on experience in applying Agile methodologies for product management and system development.
• Workday HCM Pro certification (preferred).
• Experience with Workday systems and their integration into global platforms such as a Greenhouse, Servicenow, ADP, Benefits Providers and others
• Demonstrated ability to mentor junior members and lead without formal authority.
• Proven track record of leading change management initiatives and driving organizational transformation.

• Builds Effective Teams: Building strong-identity teams that apply their diverse skills and perspectives to achieve common goals.          
• Demonstrates Self-Awareness (EQ): Using a combination of feedback and reflection to gain productive insight into personal strengths and weaknesses.
• Develops Talent: Developing people to meet both their career goals and the organization’s goals.
• Drives Results: Consistently achieving results, even under tough circumstances.
• Strategic Mindset: Seeing ahead to future possibilities and translating them into breakthrough strategies.

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