Workday Payroll Senior Principal Consultant

Role Summary

The Workday Payroll Senior Principal Consultant is a senior functional leader responsible for driving the design, delivery, and overall success of Workday Payroll implementations. Acting as a trusted advisor to clients and project teams, this individual provides strategic guidance on payroll transformation, payroll operations, and Workday leading practices while ensuring solutions align with business objectives.

The Senior Principal Consultant combines deep Workday Payroll expertise with delivery leadership, pre-sales support, and people development responsibilities. They lead complex solution discussions, guide implementation teams, support business development activities, and play a key role in growing the Workday practice through mentoring and knowledge sharing.

Why choose Cognizant

• Entrepreneurial environment that welcomes your ideas
• Opportunity to do great work
• Outreach programs that support communities and tap into your volunteer spirit
• Learning opportunities to help current needs and advancement
• Global operations, with opportunities in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific
• An abundance of Affinity groups to meet your needs

Cognizant Core Values

Work as One: We think beyond roles, relying on each other’s strengths to win as a team.

Raise the Bar: We always aim for excellence in how we work and what we deliver.

Dare to Innovate: We push boundaries and take chances to reimagine what’s possible.

Do the Right Thing: We all lead with integrity and always make the ethical choice.

Own It: We own the outcomes for our company, colleagues, and community.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a senior Workday Payroll subject matter expert, providing guidance on payroll strategy, operations, and Workday best practices.
• Lead client workshops, discovery sessions, and design discussions to define scalable Workday Payroll solutions aligned to business requirements.
• Own solution design and provide oversight across configuration, testing, deployment, and post-go-live transition activities.
• Act as the functional lead for medium to large Workday Payroll implementations, managing key solution decisions, risks, and dependencies.
• Advise clients on payroll processes, compliance requirements, controls, and payroll transformation initiatives.
• Partner with HCM, Benefits, Time Tracking, Absence, Integrations, Reporting, Security, Change Management, and Project Management teams to deliver integrated solutions.
• Work closely with integration teams to support interfaces with payroll providers, benefits vendors, and third-party applications.
• Support testing, payroll parallel runs, cutover, deployment, and hypercare activities throughout the project lifecycle.
• Mentor and coach consultants and senior consultants, providing quality reviews and functional leadership.
• Support business development activities including solutioning, estimations, proposals, demonstrations, and customer presentations.
• Contribute to practice development through methodology improvements, internal training, asset creation, and knowledge-sharing initiatives.
• Maintain expertise in Workday Payroll functionality, legislative updates, industry trends, and product innovations.

Skills & Requirements

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
• Active Workday Payroll Certification preferred.
• 5+ years of Workday implementation experience, including multiple end-to-end Workday deployments.
• Proven experience leading Workday Payroll workstreams on medium to large implementations.
• Deep functional expertise in payroll processes, payroll operations, payroll compliance, earnings and deductions, payroll accounting, and payroll integrations.
• Experience gathering requirements, facilitating workshops, solution design, configuration, testing, payroll parallel runs, and deployment.
• Experience supporting pre-sales activities, including estimations, proposals, and solution presentations.
• Strong leadership, mentoring, stakeholder management, and consulting skills.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, including engagement with executive-level stakeholders.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and work effectively in a fast-paced consulting environment.
• Eligible for SC Clearance - you must have been a UK resident for the last five years and be legally entitled to work in the UK.
• Minimal travel required, but must be willing to travel on-site as needed.