Staff Database Engineer

ServiceNow•Santa Clara, CA

1d•$146,200 - $255,900•Hybrid

About The Position

Our SWAT (Software Action Team) ensures the production stability of customer applications and infrastructure services. Our engineers are the last line of defense — production champions who own stability at every service level and act as the ultimate escalation point for internal and external customers. We are looking for a strong database engineer with deep technical expertise, sharp logical reasoning, and the flexibility to thrive in a fast-paced, high-stakes environment. If you are passionate about chasing down complex issues in large-scale distributed systems under real-world load, this role is for you. In this role you will support the infrastructure by learning the platform from end to end.

Requirements

Experience in leveraging or critically thinking about how to integrate AI into work processes, decision-making, or problem-solving. This may include using AI-powered tools, automating workflows, analyzing AI-driven insights, or exploring AI's potential impact on the function or industry.
8 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree; or 6 years and a Master's degree; or a PhD with 3 years experience; or equivalent experience in database engineering in large-scale, enterprise environments — database-focused background required.
Deep PostgreSQL expertise including MVCC, transaction management, vacuum mechanics, WAL architecture, advanced query performance tuning, buffer management, and backup/restore
Experience supporting large-scale, multi-tenant SaaS, PaaS, or cloud infrastructure platforms
Strong Unix/Linux skills — file system navigation, permissions, process management, performance diagnostics.
Deep understanding of RedHat Linux internals with hands-on expertise diagnosing CPU, memory, and I/O issues at the OS level
Experience with public cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP).
Strong problem-solving ability, logical thinking, and a genuine curiosity to understand complex systems end to end.

Nice To Haves

Experience with ServiceNow platform, scripting, tuning, and troubleshooting is highly preferred.
Scripting proficiency: shell, Python, JavaScript, Ansible.
Experience with schemas, replication, indexing, and query optimization techniques
Familiarity with Kubernetes and CI/CD pipelines

Responsibilities

Become an SME in production database troubleshooting, ServiceNow instance performance, and Linux performance analysis — both on-prem and on Hyperscaler
Own complex incident root cause analysis across multi-tenant PostgreSQL/MariaDB fleets at scale.
Develop observability tooling and automation to prevent recurrence of critical issues
Influence infrastructure decisions that shape our multi-tenant cloud platform
Mentor and collaborate with engineers across operations, support, and development.