Staff Data Platform Software Engineer - veza

ServiceNow•Santa Clara, CA

2d•$176,100 - $308,200

About The Position

Veza is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join its Graph Data Platform team. The role contributes to the design, improvement, and maintenance of the scalable software behind the Veza Access Graph, working with cross-functional teams to develop identity and access management products. The engineer will provide technical leadership across architecture and implementation, set engineering standards, drive workstream roadmaps, and deliver substantial hands-on technical work. The role also involves representing team plans and dependencies across company initiatives, resolving stakeholder and project challenges, and mentoring team leads and individual contributors. Veza is part of ServiceNow following an acquisition completed in March 2026. The position supports the development of identity security capabilities for enterprises, including access and entitlement management across application, data, cloud, and AI-agent environments. The stated base pay range for positions in the relevant location is $176,100–$308,200, plus equity when applicable, variable or incentive compensation, and benefits. Compensation varies based on qualifications and work location. ServiceNow describes its work personas as flexible, remote, or required in office, assigned according to the nature of the work and location; the specific persona for this role is not stated.

Requirements

At least 10 years of professional backend software development experience, focused on scalable distributed systems, data management, identity, security, or related domains.
Knowledge of distributed systems fundamentals, including consistency models, partitioning or sharding, replication, consensus, and failure modes at scale.
Knowledge of graph database internals, including traversal algorithms, query planning and optimization, and indexing strategies—not only use of an existing graph API.
Production experience building and testing backend services in Go at a systems-programming level, including concurrency patterns and memory and performance tuning.
Experience with large-scale data modeling and graph schema design for high cardinality and fan-out.
Experience designing and implementing RESTful APIs in microservice architectures.
Experience with AWS, Azure, or GCP and containerization or orchestration technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes.
Familiarity with caching mechanisms in distributed systems.
Track record of making technical decisions with organization-wide impact, beyond execution within an assigned mandate.
Experience setting technical direction or standards adopted by multiple teams.
Systems design experience emphasizing correctness and rollback safety in high-stakes infrastructure.
Fluency with AI-assisted engineering tools such as Claude Code or Copilot for design exploration, code review, debugging, and documentation, with the ability to verify generated output against source, tests, or runtime behavior.

Nice To Haves

Experience building or deeply modifying a storage engine or query engine, such as Neo4j internals or a comparable engine.
Deep knowledge of relational algebra and graph algorithms, with experience across OLTP and OLAP systems.
Track record of using AI tools to multiply individual and team output on complex, large-codebase work beyond autocomplete-level usage.
Knowledge of identity and access management concepts, including RBAC, ABAC, permission graphs, and entitlement modeling.
Security- or compliance-adjacent engineering background.
Graduate degree.

Responsibilities

Act as the technical expert for the Veza Access Graph and turn broad technical, functional, or business challenges into executable initiatives.
Solve complex problems without established precedent, from architecture through implementation.
Serve as a subject-matter expert and define team coding standards and engineering best practices.
Identify opportunities to simplify systems, reduce redundancy, and simplify the platform at scale.
Make significant direct technical contributions and independently drive workstream-level design reviews.
Set expectations for code quality, testing, documentation, and support, and share best practices with teammates.
Set roadmaps and priorities for workstreams; drive planning, design, and delegation of key components.
Identify gaps, dependencies, and unresolved problems, partnering with customers and stakeholders to address them.
Refine technical requirements proactively with key stakeholders.
Deliver high-quality work on time while operating autonomously.
Break complex roadmaps into workstreams, milestones, and timelines, and drive alignment across product, program, engineering, and dependency teams.
Represent the team's roadmap and dependencies in company-wide initiatives.
Coach and mentor team leads and individual contributors; help define interview loops, identify talent gaps, and develop coaching plans.
Drive collaboration, resolve conflicts, and build stakeholder buy-in to unblock projects and support successful delivery.
Model ServiceNow's core values and contribute feedback to improve team culture.