Senior Staff Platform Engineer - Kubernetes - Federal

ServiceNow•Santa Clara, CA

7d•$190,900 - $334,100•Hybrid

About The Position

As a Senior Staff Software Engineer in ServiceNow’s Data Platform organization, you will design and implement features and services within a cloud-native platform. The role supports US Regulated Markets and requires passing ServiceNow’s USFedPASS background screening, including credit, criminal/misdemeanor, and drug checks. Due to federal requirements, candidates must be US citizens, naturalized US citizens, or US permanent residents holding a green card. This is a flexible hybrid position requiring two days per week at a ServiceNow office. You will build and operate platform components, lead scoped projects from requirements and design through delivery, and collaborate with senior, staff, and principal engineers on architecture and standards. The role is primarily hands-on, building Kubernetes operators, controllers, automation, and platform services, while contributing to reliability, scalability, testing, instrumentation, runbooks, and on-call operations. You will also help onboard and mentor junior engineers through reviews, design feedback, and pairing.

Requirements

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.
At least 5 years of hands-on experience building, deploying, and operating workloads on Kubernetes.
Working experience with at least one major hyperscaler (AWS, Azure, or GCP), including core compute, networking, and IAM primitives.
Track record of delivering complex features or services as a key contributor.
Working knowledge of containers, CI/CD, GitOps-based delivery, and infrastructure-as-code.
Strong programming skills in Go, or another systems language with willingness to work primarily in Go.
Experience leveraging or critically thinking about integrating AI into engineering work.
Must be a US citizen, naturalized US citizen, or US permanent resident holding a green card.
Must pass ServiceNow USFedPASS screening, including credit, criminal/misdemeanor, and drug checks.

Nice To Haves

Experience building Kubernetes controllers or working with the operator pattern.
Familiarity with container networking (CNI) or service mesh.
Experience with workload identity, mTLS, or secrets management.
Experience with observability, including metrics, tracing, and dashboards.

Responsibilities

Design, build, and operate components and services within the cloud-native platform, taking features from design through production.
Lead well-scoped team projects by turning requirements and rough ideas into technical designs and delivering them.
Collaborate with senior, staff, and principal engineers to align work with platform architecture and standards.
Contribute to reliability, scalability, and operability through testing, instrumentation, runbook improvements, and on-call participation.
Build Kubernetes operators, controllers, automation, and platform services used by other teams.
Onboard and mentor junior engineers through code review, design feedback, and pairing.
Consider and integrate AI into engineering work, such as through AI-powered coding and operational tools or workflow automation.