Senior Staff Software Engineer

ServiceNow is seeking a Senior Staff Software Engineer to serve as a technical lead for building and operating containerized Java and Python microservices on Kubernetes, focused on AI-native enterprise capabilities. This role includes leading architecture and design reviews and integrating frontier AI SDKs along with GenAI evaluation and observability into production systems.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, architect, and implement Java and Python microservices deployed on Kubernetes
• Define APIs, service boundaries, data models, and integration patterns for AI-enabled products
• Build reliable distributed systems that address concurrency, queueing, retries, fairness, backpressure, and failure recovery
• Integrate frontier AI SDKs including Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI into production software systems
• Apply prompt engineering, structured outputs, model evaluation, and production observability for GenAI use cases
• Partner with research, product, security, and infrastructure teams to deliver enterprise-grade services
• Raise the engineering bar through architecture reviews, code reviews, mentoring, and technical direction

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with strong fundamentals in data structures, algorithms, distributed systems, APIs, and backend service design
• Experience leveraging or critically evaluating how to integrate AI into work processes, decision-making, or problem-solving, including use of AI-powered tools, automation of workflows, analysis of AI-driven insights, or exploration of AI impacts
• Demonstrated technical leadership experience as a technical lead, Staff Engineer, or equivalent senior individual contributor focused on architecture, technical direction, code quality, and mentoring
• Strong backend engineering skills in Java, Python, or equivalent, with hands-on experience designing, building, and operating production services
• Hands-on experience building or operating containerized applications deployed in Kubernetes, OpenShift, or similar orchestration environments
• Experience designing scalable APIs, asynchronous processing systems, queues, event-driven services, or data-processing pipelines
• Familiarity with cloud-native infrastructure and production troubleshooting, including observability practices such as logging, monitoring, and reliability engineering
• Ability to make pragmatic architecture tradeoffs across performance, reliability, security, maintainability, and delivery speed
• Ability to lead code reviews, design reviews, and technical mentorship for other engineers
• Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate across product, research, engineering, infrastructure, and security

Technologies

Java, Python, Kubernetes, OpenShift, Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Prometheus, Grafana, Instana, PostgreSQL, Redis, Kafka, RabbitMQ, S3-compatible object storage

Nice to Have

• Prior experience working on AI/ML products, collaborating with research teams, or translating advanced AI/ML capabilities into production software
• Knowledge of NLP, search, and knowledge extraction
• Experience with multi-modal systems such as document ingestion and processing, image processing, and voice
• Working experience with frontier AI SDKs such as Anthropic, Google, or OpenAI
• Familiarity with prompt engineering, structured outputs, tool calling, agentic design patterns, Model Context Protocol, or AI-assisted development workflows
• Experience with observability tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, Instana, or equivalent monitoring and logging platforms
• Knowledge of MLOps or applying machine learning models to production use cases
• Experience with infrastructure backends such as PostgreSQL, Redis, Kafka, RabbitMQ, S3-compatible object storage, or equivalent technologies
• Published work, patents, conference papers, or open-source contributions related to AI systems, knowledge systems, search, retrieval, or large-scale data processing

Benefits

• Health plans, including flexible spending accounts
• 401(k) Plan with company match
• ESPP
• Matching donations
• Flexible time away plan
• Family leave programs

Work Location and Work Persona

This position is located in Santa Clara, CA (onsite). Work personas may be categorized as flexible, remote, or required in office based on the nature of the work and assigned work location. ServiceNow may confirm the distance between your primary residence and the closest ServiceNow office using a third-party service to determine eligibility for a work persona.

Compensation

For positions in this location, base pay ranges from $190,900 - $334,100 per year, plus equity (when applicable), variable or incentive compensation, and benefits. Sales positions generally offer a competitive On Target Earnings (OTE) incentive compensation structure. The base pay shown is a guideline, and individual total compensation varies based on qualifications, skill level, competencies, and work location.

Accommodation and Application Support

If you require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application process, or are unable to use the online application and need an alternative method to apply, contact [email protected] for assistance.

Export Control Regulations

For positions requiring access to controlled technology subject to export control regulations, ServiceNow may need to obtain export control approval from government authorities for certain individuals. Employment is contingent upon ServiceNow obtaining any export license or other approval required by relevant export control authorities.