Staff Software Engineer, Platform Cryptography

ServiceNow•Santa Clara, CA

19h

About The Position

The Staff Software Engineer will design and deliver enterprise-scale cryptographic and security solutions for ServiceNow’s SaaS platform. The role focuses on foundational cryptographic infrastructure across certificate lifecycle, key management, secrets distribution, and workload identity in regulated environments. It also evaluates appropriate uses of AI and machine learning in security, including anomaly detection, certificate risk scoring, and identifying cryptographic anti-patterns. The engineer will architect and operate reliable, secure cryptographic services, owning them end-to-end on Kubernetes in a multi-tenant environment, including deployment, scaling, on-call support, and incident response. The role works with product owners, security architects, and platform teams to translate security and compliance requirements into working frameworks, and includes mentoring engineers and advancing the team’s security practices. The position also calls for staying current with cryptographic developments, including post-quantum readiness.

Requirements

At least 8 years of professional software engineering experience.
Production-scale experience with Java, Go, or a comparable strongly typed language.
Strong computer science fundamentals, including data structures, algorithms, object-oriented design, and distributed-systems tradeoffs.
Production experience running services on Kubernetes, including deployments, Helm, and CI/CD, in a SaaS or multi-tenant environment.
Working understanding of cryptographic primitives, including symmetric and asymmetric encryption, hashing, digital signatures, and TLS/PKI fundamentals.
Demonstrated security-first engineering practices, including secure coding, threat modeling, and disciplined code review.

Nice To Haves

Direct experience in cryptography, PKI, key management, or secrets management, such as certificate lifecycle systems, HSM/KMS integration, or crypto-agility work.
Hands-on AI/ML experience applying techniques to security or operations problems, such as anomaly detection, risk scoring, or log and telemetry analysis, or critically integrating LLM tooling into engineering workflows.
Experience in regulated environments, such as FIPS 140-2/3, FedRAMP, Common Criteria, or similar.
Exposure to post-quantum cryptography.
A track record of mentoring engineers and raising a team’s security standards.

Responsibilities

Design, build, and maintain scalable, secure cryptographic services that meet FIPS compliance and regulated-environment requirements.
Architect and operate mission-critical cryptographic services with reliability and security as first-class design constraints.
Own services end-to-end on Kubernetes in a multi-tenant SaaS environment, including deployment, scaling, on-call duties, and incident response.
Threat-model features and bring a security mindset to design reviews.
Evaluate appropriate applications of AI and machine learning in cryptography and security, distinguishing useful applications from distractions.
Collaborate with product owners, security architects, and platform teams to turn compliance and security requirements into working cryptographic frameworks.
Mentor engineers on secure coding, cryptographic pitfalls, and rigorous design reviews.
Track cryptographic advancements, including post-quantum readiness, and raise relevant developments before they become compliance deadlines.