---
title: 'Workday HCM Manager at Thought Machine'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/workday-hcm-manager-thought-machine-london-pxg106sxwhfy'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-02'
---

# Workday HCM Manager at Thought Machine

- **Company:** Thought Machine
- **Location:** London, United Kingdom
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-10-26
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-02
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/thought-machine/922490a6-8a5e-461b-831f-12c08ac1517f

## Job description

Thought Machine's mission is bold – to properly and permanently rid the world's banks of legacy technology. To achieve this, we have developed the foundations of modern banking through core and payments technology which run natively in the cloud. What we are attempting is hard and means we need great people working together to build great technology.

We have grown rapidly in the past few years – growing our team to more than 550 individuals across offices in London, New York, Singapore, Sydney and our newly established Engineering Hub in Lisbon. We have raised more than £500m in funding and our investors include Molten Ventures, Eurazeo, Intesa Sanpaolo, Temasek, Nyca Partners, JPMorgan Chase Strategic Investments, Standard Chartered Ventures, and more.

We have created a culture that enables our team to produce the best work in the industry while ensuring we have fun along the way. We're regularly cited as having a fantastic workplace culture and have been recognised by Sifted magazine as having one of the highest Glassdoor ratings for a UK fintech company and the industry's most generous employee share package. Named one of the world's most innovative fintechs by Global Finance Magazine, we were also recognised by the Financial Times as one of Europe's fastest-growing companies for two consecutive years—and a UK Best Employer for 2026. Thought Machine is looking for a talented HCM systems manager and will report into the People Operations Director. The business uses Workday HCM and needs someone experienced in usage of the system to continue with process improvements, maintain the system and support the People function. We are on a journey to eliminate manual processes, and this role will play a critical part in ensuring we have reliable data, automated processes and fast, meaningful reporting.

Duties

- Full system administrator ownership, responsible for ongoing maintenance and development of Workday HR system, Ashby Recruitment ATS system, Ravio Benchmarking Tooling, shares management system and other people systems - working towards a fully integrated people systems landscape.
- Drive improvement across all People Team systems - reviewing existing processes, introducing AI, automation, and accurate reporting.
- Partner closely with People, Recruitment, Finance, and IT stakeholders to capture operational requirements, maintain a structured delivery backlog, and prioritise system enhancements that deliver measurable business impact and thoughtful system design.
- Recommend the optimum way of maintaining systems considering accuracy, timely reporting, system security and segregation of duties. Drive best practices and standards, untangling any tech debt or ineffective processes.
- Own the relationships with the appropriate 3rd party reps for all people system providers, integrators or external consultants. Manage the contracts and renewals and proactively engage with the product owners and commercial teams, keep ahead of changes, fixes, best practice, prices etc - cascading relevant information internally.
- Actively engage and drive involvement across the business. Engaging key stakeholders (HR, Operations, IT and Security) to suggest and implement further improvements across the technical landscape.
- Support the People team and the rest of the Enterprise with best practice, standard processes e.g. performance cycles, on/offboarding, pay reviews, reporting, etc.
- Support training activities and ensure the business is kept up to speed on newly implemented processes, including the production of user guides and training.

## Requirements

Essential

- Proven Workday HCM knowledge and experience across Core HCM, compensation, expenses, security groups, integrations, business process framework (BPF) and advanced reporting (calculated fields & custom dashboards) and maintenance.
- Systems implementation, configuration, support and development.
- A passion for providing an excellent end-user experience and automating.
- Self-motivating and comfortable in a fast-paced and rapidly-changing environment with competing deadlines and custom build requirements.
- Skilled at building strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders to deliver preferred outcomes - leveraging technical vocabulary to effectively communicate with engineering, IT, finance, HR and operational teams.
- Advanced Excel / Google suite and database skills.
- Exposure to ATS systems (Ashby preferred but not essential). Proven track record administering modern recruitment platforms.
- A strong desire to expand beyond Workday to own, architect, and optimize the broader People Team technology and tooling ecosystem.
- Direct experience configuring and integrating various systems or tools into Workday HRIS, for example - external ATS, Docusign, background Checks platforms, benchmarking tools etc.

Desirable

- Formal HR or Systems qualifications (e.g., Workday Pro certifications, or equivalent business systems certifications).
- Prior experience managing people technology within a high-growth SaaS, fintech, or software enterprise.
- Business Analysis skills and a flexible, proactive approach with a willingness to constructively challenge existing practices.

We actively hire candidates who demonstrate technical excellence in their field and welcome people of all ages and backgrounds, providing everyone with equal access to professional development. You are encouraged to apply even if your experience doesn't accurately match the job description. We also encourage applications from those with different abilities, including candidates with ADHD, autism, dyslexia or dyspraxia.

## About Thought Machine

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Thought Machine provides cloud-native core banking and payments platforms that enable banks to build and run any financial product without legacy constraints.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series D, valuation $2.7bn as of 2023)
- **Headquarters**: London, United Kingdom
- **Founded**: 2014
- **Founders**: Paul Taylor

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Core banking technology / Fintech infrastructure
- **Target customers**: Tier 1 multinational banks, regional banks, digital banks, and fintechs (B2B, enterprise)
- **Mission or purpose**: To create technology that can run the world’s banks according to the best designs and software practices of the modern age, permanently ridding banks of legacy infrastructure problems.

## Products & Services
- **[Vault Core](https://www.thoughtmachine.net/)**: Cloud-native core banking engine built from scratch, using microservices architecture and smart contracts. Supports current/savings accounts, credit cards, loans, mortgages, and custom products. Includes a Product Library of 200+ preconfigured financial products. (Type: SaaS / platform)
- **[Vault Payments](https://www.thoughtmachine.net/)**: Cloud-native payments processing platform for all payment types, schemes, and regions. Launched with card issuing and processing on the Mastercard network. (Type: SaaS / platform)

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: $2.7bn (after $160m Series D in 2023, per [thoughtmachine.net/about-us](https://www.thoughtmachine.net/about-us))
- **Key Metric**: Total funding raised – $510m across Series A ($25m), B ($125m), C ($200m), and D ($160m). Annual revenue not publicly available.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: JPMorgan Chase, Lloyds Banking Group, ING, Standard Chartered, SEB, Intesa Sanpaolo, Nyca Partners, Molten Ventures, Eurazeo, British Business Bank, Temasek, Morgan Stanley. Strategic partnership with Mastercard (2024).
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount surpassed 500 (per [thoughtmachine.net/about-us](https://www.thoughtmachine.net/about-us)); global expansion into Mexico, Chile, South Korea, Israel, Guatemala; named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Retail Core Banking Systems; client wins include JPMorgan Chase, ING Poland, Intesa Sanpaolo, Kiwibank, and Mox Bank.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Cloud-native architecture** – no legacy code, built from scratch for the cloud, enabling horizontal scaling, high availability, and continuous deployment.
- **Configurability via smart contracts** – banks can create any product without code changes, using a rich library of pre-integrated solutions.
- **API-first and cloud-agnostic** – gives banks flexibility to choose hosting provider and integrate with third-party services.
- **Trusted by top global banks** – many clients are also investors, demonstrating deep industry confidence.

## Strategic Focus
- Continuing global expansion into new territories and winning Tier 1 bank clients.
- Deepening the Vault Payments platform and expanding card/payment scheme support.
- Leveraging the Mastercard partnership to accelerate payments adoption.
- Maintaining product leadership and recognition in core banking (Gartner Leader).

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Described as “world-class in talent and technical ability” with a collaborative, inclusive, and transparent environment. Weekly town halls and CEO Q&A sessions every six weeks.
- **Social & perks**: Free food and drink in all offices, social clubs (wine & cheese, film, sports), sponsored fitness activities (football, basketball, running, climbing).
- **Recognition**: Named #1 Best Place to Work in New York City by Crain’s (2022, 2023) and Best Place to Work by American Banker.
- **Work policy**: Global offices with hybrid/office presence expected for most roles (engineering roles listed on careers page include many office-based positions). Flexibility not explicitly stated but typical for fintech.
- **Engineering culture**: Strong emphasis on software design, scalable cloud infrastructure, and product excellence. Many engineers come from leading tech companies.

## Sources
1. [thoughtmachine.net](https://www.thoughtmachine.net/)
2. [thoughtmachine.net/about-us](https://www.thoughtmachine.net/about-us)
3. [thoughtmachine.net/life-at-thought-machine](https://www.thoughtmachine.net/life-at-thought-machine)
4. [thoughtmachine.net/meet-our-team](https://www.thoughtmachine.net/meet-our-team)
5. [LinkedIn Company Page](https://uk.linkedin.com/company/thought-machine)
6. [Careers Page (Ashby)](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/thought-machine)

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