Staff Software Engineer

ServiceNow•San Diego, CA

6h•$149,800 - $262,200

About The Position

As a Staff Software Engineer on ServiceNow’s Design System team, you will build and evolve the engineering surface of the design system, including its theme system, design tokens, and tooling that enables engineers, designers, and product teams to apply it correctly. You will partner closely with design and product counterparts. Because decisions affect internal product teams and external customers, systems thinking and accessibility knowledge are as important as front-end engineering expertise. The role includes evolving token architecture and theming, creating adoption and AI tooling, maintaining accessibility standards and automated checks, coordinating changes across consuming teams, and supporting adopters. You will also contribute to technical direction through design and code reviews, documentation, and mentorship. This is a regular position with a flexible or remote work persona. For positions in the stated location, the base pay range is $149,800–$262,200, plus equity when applicable, variable or incentive compensation, and benefits. Compensation varies based on factors including qualifications, skill level, competencies, and work location.

Requirements

At least 8 years of professional front-end engineering experience, including significant experience building or operating a design system used by multiple teams.
Advanced TypeScript and modern JavaScript skills, with deep knowledge of the browser platform, including the DOM, events, Custom Elements, and Shadow DOM.
Hands-on design-token experience, including schema design, transform pipelines such as Style Dictionary, and multi-platform or multi-brand distribution.
Expert CSS skills, particularly theming at scale with custom properties, cascade layers, modern layout, container queries, and forced colors mode.
Current working knowledge of WCAG 2.2 Level AA and its application to tokens, themes, and components, with hands-on screen reader and keyboard testing experience.
Fluency applying AI tooling in engineering practice, including agentic coding tools, and judgment about where generated output requires human review.
Front-end build, release, and versioning skills using tools such as Vite, Rollup, or Webpack, plus semantic versioning in a monorepo.
Demonstrated systems thinking, including reasoning about cascading impact across dependent teams and customers and planning migrations.
Proven ability to collaborate as a peer with designers and product managers and influence technical direction across teams without direct authority.
Clear technical writing skills, with experience documenting APIs and guiding engineers through adoption.

Nice To Haves

Experience building AI tooling for engineers, designers, or product partners, such as agent skills, MCP servers, or prompt-driven UI generation.
Experience building developer-facing documentation or enablement sites.

Responsibilities

Evolve the theme system and design-token architecture, including token taxonomy, platform transforms, theming APIs, and accessibility guardrails.
Build adoption tooling, including theme builders, linting and audit rules, codemods, Figma-to-code workflows, and local development aids.
Build AI skills and tooling that help engineers, designers, and product partners create prototypes and production code that follow the design system by default.
Partner with design system designers and product managers, balancing design intent, customer needs, and engineering costs.
Assess the downstream impact of changes across consuming teams and customer instances; manage versioning, deprecation, and communication about breaking changes.
Maintain WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards, including contrast, forced colors, focus visibility, and reflow, and build automated regression checks.
Collaborate with component authors and the component engine team on API contracts, token consumption, and release sequencing.
Maintain API documentation, usage guidance, and migration paths.
Support adopters by triaging issues, unblocking teams, and incorporating recurring friction into the roadmap.
Provide technical design and code reviews and mentor engineers across the design system and consuming teams.