Director of Engineering, HR Service Delivery

ServiceNow•Santa Clara, CA

8h•$221,200 - $387,100•Hybrid

About The Position

ServiceNow is seeking a Director of Engineering to lead the architecture, delivery, and evolution of key services within its HR Service Delivery (HRSD) portfolio. HRSD supports employee experiences through intelligent workflows, case management, knowledge, lifecycle events, document management, and AI-powered employee assistance. The Director will lead an organization of approximately 20 engineers building and operating critical services for large enterprises, define technical strategy, drive execution, and deliver scalable, reliable, and secure cloud services across the ServiceNow platform. The role will also shape the use of AI in software engineering by advancing AI-assisted development, automation, and intelligent workflows. The goal is to improve productivity, innovation, and quality while reinvesting engineering capacity in customer value and product innovation. The position is based in San Francisco, Santa Clara, or San Diego, California, with a hybrid work model indicated in the posting. The listing also identifies the work persona as Flexible or Remote.

Requirements

12 or more years of software engineering experience, with a proven record of delivering enterprise-scale products and services.
5 or more years of engineering leadership experience, including managing engineering managers and senior technical leaders.
Demonstrated success driving technical strategy and execution across multiple teams and stakeholders.
Proven track record of building and leading high-performing engineering organizations.
Strong background in distributed systems, cloud-native architectures, APIs, data platforms, and enterprise software development.
Experience building and operating highly available, mission-critical services at scale.
Proficiency in modern programming languages such as Java, Python, Go, or similar technologies.
Strong understanding of software architecture, system design, observability, performance, and reliability engineering.
Experience building, integrating, or operating AI-powered product capabilities.
Familiarity with large language models, retrieval systems, agentic workflows, semantic search, and modern AI development frameworks.
Strong technical judgment and a customer-first mindset.
Ability to balance innovation with operational excellence.
Excellent communication and influence skills across technical and executive audiences.
Proven ability to build high-performing teams and develop future leaders.
Ability to thrive in fast-moving environments and bring clarity to complex problems.
B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

Passion for applying AI and automation to improve customer experiences and engineering productivity.

Responsibilities

Own the technical strategy, architecture, delivery, and operational excellence of key HRSD services.
Build scalable platform capabilities for employee service management, knowledge experiences, lifecycle workflows, document management, and emerging AI-powered HR solutions.
Drive development of AI-native capabilities that help employees find information, complete tasks, resolve issues, and navigate employment milestones.
Partner with product and design teams to turn customer needs into impactful solutions.
Make long-term architectural decisions that improve scalability, reliability, extensibility, and operational efficiency while balancing delivery commitments with modernization and innovation.
Champion AI-assisted engineering practices across the software development lifecycle to improve productivity, automate repetitive work, enhance quality, and accelerate delivery with appropriate accountability and oversight.
Recruit, develop, and retain engineering talent; coach engineers and emerging leaders; and foster ownership and continuous learning.
Establish high standards for software quality, operational rigor, security, reliability, and maintainability.
Use data and metrics to improve engineering effectiveness, system health, and customer outcomes.
Collaborate with Product Management, Design, Customer Success, Platform Engineering, and executive leadership to align priorities and deliver customer value.
Ensure services meet standards for security, privacy, compliance, and responsible AI, protecting sensitive employee information while enabling enterprise-scale innovation.