Senior Staff Platform Engineer - Kubernetes - Federal

ServiceNow•San Diego, CA

6d•Hybrid

About The Position

As a Senior Staff Software Engineer with ServiceNow’s Data Platform organization, you will design and implement features and services within a cloud-native platform. You will take platform components from design through production, lead well-scoped projects, and turn requirements and early ideas into technical designs and delivered work. You will collaborate with senior, staff, and principal engineers to align work with platform architecture and standards. The role is primarily hands-on, building operators, controllers, automation, and platform services used by other teams. You will contribute to reliability, scalability, and operability through testing, instrumentation, runbook improvements, and on-call participation. You will also help onboard and mentor junior engineers through code reviews, design feedback, and pairing. This is a flexible hybrid position requiring two days per week in a ServiceNow office. The role supports US Regulated Markets and requires passing USFedPASS screening, including credit and criminal/misdemeanor checks and a drug test. Applicants must be US citizens, naturalized US citizens, or US permanent residents holding a green card.

Requirements

Experience leveraging or critically considering how to integrate AI into engineering work, such as through AI-powered coding or operational tools, workflow automation, or analysis of AI’s effects on software and infrastructure development.
12 or more years of software development experience with a bachelor's degree; or 8 or more years with a master's degree; or 5 or more 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.
A track record of delivering complex features or services as a key contributor.
Solid 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.
Must pass the USFedPASS background screening, which includes credit and criminal/misdemeanor checks and a drug test.
Must be a US citizen, naturalized US citizen, or US permanent resident holding a green card.

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 cloud-native platform components and services, taking features from design through production.
Lead well-scoped team projects by translating requirements and rough ideas into technical designs and delivering the work.
Collaborate with senior, staff, and principal engineers to align work with platform architecture and standards.
Improve the reliability, scalability, and operability of platform components through tests, instrumentation, and runbook improvements.
Participate in on-call rotations.
Build operators, controllers, automation, and platform services used by other teams.
Help onboard and mentor junior engineers through code reviews, design feedback, and pairing.