Product Manager / Workday HCM

Title: Product Manager / Workday HCM

Locations: DC Metro Area, (Hybrid)

Experience: 10+ Years

Pay rate: ./hr on W2

Only Local candidates who are in DC/VA/MD who can got for F2F interview*

Role Overview

This is primarily a BAU-focused Product Manager role, rather than a role tied to one major implementation. The Product Manager will own and organize the ongoing HCM backlog, partner closely with business stakeholders, translate needs into actionable requirements/user stories, and help introduce stronger product management and Agile practices to the engineering team.

Key Responsibilities

• Take ownership of the HCM product backlog, including organizing, prioritizing, and grooming work for the engineering team.
• Create clear user stories and requirements with appropriate detail and acceptance criteria.
• Partner directly with business stakeholders to uncover and clarify new requirements.
• Guide stakeholders through conversations around the current-state process, business need, and desired future state rather than simply taking requirements at face value.
• Establish and mature product management processes and best practices across the product lifecycle.
• Support BAU enhancements across the broader HCM environment.
• Manage a specific business-funded initiative within the Talent Management space, including status tracking, timelines, requirements, and delivery coordination.
• Help the team with Agile practices, including backlog grooming, prioritization, capacity planning, and managing engineering capacity.

Required Experience / Skills

• Strong Product Management experience, ideally supporting enterprise applications or platforms.
• Hands-on Workday HCM experience.
• Strong understanding of the HR lifecycle and HCM business processes.
• Experience across areas such as Talent Management, Compensation, Recruiting, Learning & Development, and People Operations.
• Strong Agile experience, particularly backlog management/grooming, user stories, prioritization, and capacity planning.
• Ability to manage both ongoing BAU enhancements and a defined project/workstream.
• Excellent stakeholder communication and requirements-gathering skills.
• Ability to challenge, clarify, and guide business partners toward well-defined requirements.
• Comfortable working closely with engineering teams and bringing structure to a relatively new product management function.

*Candidate Profile / Interview Feedback

*Rani is looking for someone who is more of a hands-on Product Manager than a high-level Program Manager. A previous candidate had strong implementation/program-level experience and could speak to Agile, but the role requires someone comfortable getting into the details of backlog grooming, capacity planning, requirements, user stories, and day-to-day product ownership. Strong communication and HR lifecycle knowledge are particularly important.