Senior Staff Data Platform Engineer - Data Access Team

ServiceNow•Santa Clara, CA

8d•$201,300 - $352,300•Hybrid

About The Position

Every workflow, AI agent, and application on the ServiceNow AI Platform depends on one thing: getting the right data, fast, correctly, and securely. As part of the Persistence organization, you'll build the layer that makes that possible, the foundation under a platform that 85% of the Fortune 500 runs their business on. You'll help give developers and customers faster, more reliable, more secure access to the data platform they build on, push the limits of IO, transactions, and concurrency across relational, time-series, and columnar engines, and turn hard infrastructure problems into simple capabilities and automation for the developers and customers who build on the platform.

Requirements

Having aptitude for learning new technologies quickly
Demonstrated success completing complex, cross-team projects, on time and with quality
Experience with troubleshooting difficult production issues e.g., memory leaks, concurrency issues, locking issues, network problems, intermittent failures etc. across the stack
Track record of technical leadership — influencing architecture and engineering decisions across multiple teams without relying on direct authority
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including experience authoring design docs/RFCs and presenting technical strategy to senior engineering leadership
Experience leveraging or critically thinking about how to integrate AI into engineering work — whether using AI-powered coding and operational tooling, automating workflows, or reasoning about how AI changes the way software and infrastructure are built.
12+ years of software development experience with a Bachelor's degree; OR 8+ years with a Master's degree; OR 5+ years with a PhD; OR equivalent work experience.
A demonstrated track record of technical leadership at a Staff or Senior Staff level (or equivalent)
Expert level with core Java development
Advanced-Expert level of backend platform development
Expert level understanding of best practices for object-oriented and modularized software, with emphasis on Java
Knowledge and/or experience with relational databases: PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL, Trino, etc.
Strong knowledge of data structures, algorithms, object-oriented design, design patterns, and performance optimization at scale
Experience with automated testing frameworks (e.g., JUnit, Selenium, TestNG) and integrating tests into CI/CD pipelines
Deep understanding of software quality principles including reliability, observability, and production readiness
Good understanding of cloud-based and distributed systems

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with ServiceNow platform is a plus
Familiarity with RDBMS internals
Familiarity with Neo4J and graph databases
Passionate about database technologies
Experience with Unix shell
Experience working in a DevOps environment
Experience working in a customer focused environment

Responsibilities

Set the technical direction and architecture strategy for the data access layer, balancing long-term scalability with delivery
Work on core data architecture that touches every part of the product, keeping it high-quality, reliable, secure, and fast
Own features from design through delivery, turning business requirements into well-architected, cross-team solutions
Lead design and code reviews, championing performance, maintainability, and testability across multiple teams
Define comprehensive test strategies covering functional, regression, integration, and performance testing
Diagnose and resolve the hardest production issues across the stack
Mentor engineers at every level and raise the technical bar across the organization