Staff Database Engineer

ServiceNow•Santa Clara, CA

6d•$146,200 - $255,900

About The Position

The Staff Database Engineer will join ServiceNow’s SWAT (Software Action Team), which works to ensure the production stability of customer applications and infrastructure services. The team approaches this work from an operations perspective, supports internal and external customers as the final level of support, and champions service stability. The role is suited to a software engineer with a strong database technology background, performance analysis experience, and troubleshooting skills, particularly someone motivated to investigate complex systems under dynamic real-world loads. The engineer will support the infrastructure by learning the platform end to end and will work in a fast-paced, innovative environment with influence across the organization and its customers. The role includes on-call rotation responsibilities. The engineer will become a subject-matter expert in production database troubleshooting, ServiceNow instance performance issues, and Linux performance analysis on-premises and on hyperscalers. The role owns root-cause analysis for complex incidents across large, multi-tenant PostgreSQL and MariaDB fleets; develops observability and automation to prevent recurrence of critical issues; influences infrastructure decisions for the multi-tenant cloud platform; and mentors and collaborates with engineers across operations, support, and development.

Requirements

Experience leveraging or critically considering how to integrate AI into work processes, decision-making, or problem-solving; examples include using AI-powered tools, automating workflows, analyzing AI-driven insights, or exploring AI's potential impact on the function or industry.
Five years of related experience with a bachelor's degree, or three years with a master's degree, or a PhD without experience, or equivalent work experience.
At least five years of experience supporting or testing large-scale web-based distributed applications.
At least five years of experience with multiple relational databases, especially PostgreSQL.
Database experience including MVCC, transaction management, vacuum mechanics, database and query performance tuning, buffer management, WAL architecture, and backup and restore.
At least five years of hands-on experience working on a SaaS, PaaS, or cloud infrastructure product or solution.
Unix skills, including development, navigation, file manipulation, permissions, searching and finding files and text, and administrative actions.
Strong problem-solving and analytical skills and an aptitude for learning new technologies.
Eagerness to learn the ServiceNow Platform.

Nice To Haves

Experience with the ServiceNow platform, scripting, tuning, and troubleshooting.
Basic shell scripting, Python, JavaScript, and Ansible.
Good understanding of schemas, tablespaces, indexing, and database performance optimization.
Familiarity with or knowledge of CentOS or Red Hat operating systems.
Formal experience on a DevOps team (Kubernetes and CI/CD pipeline), performance team, or support team supporting a web-based application.

Responsibilities

Become a subject-matter expert in production database troubleshooting, ServiceNow instance performance issues, and Linux performance analysis on-premises and on hyperscalers.
Own complex incident root-cause analyses across large, multi-tenant PostgreSQL and MariaDB fleets.
Develop observability and automation to prevent recurrence of critical issues.
Influence infrastructure decisions that shape the multi-tenant cloud platform.
Mentor and collaborate with engineers across operations, support, and development.
Support infrastructure by learning the platform end to end.
Participate in an on-call rotation.