Staff Software Engineer - Data Platform

ServiceNow•Kirkland, WA

1d•$149,800 - $262,200

About The Position

ServiceNow is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join its Data Platform Engineering organization. This is a hands-on contributor role focused on owning well-scoped components and projects and delivering them end-to-end. The engineer will design, build, and operate components and services within a cloud-native platform, taking features from design through production. The role also leads scoped projects, translates requirements and early ideas into technical designs, and aligns work with platform architecture and standards in collaboration with senior, staff, and principal engineers. The engineer will build operators, controllers, automation, and platform services used by other teams. The role includes contributing to reliability, scalability, and operability through testing, instrumentation, runbook improvements, and on-call participation. It also includes helping onboard and mentor junior engineers through code review, design feedback, and pairing. The position supports US Regulated Markets and requires passing the USFedPASS background screening, including credit and criminal/misdemeanor checks and a drug test. Due to federal requirements, candidates must be US citizens, naturalized US citizens, or US permanent residents holding a green card.

Requirements

Experience leveraging or critically considering how to integrate AI into engineering work, such as using AI-powered coding or operational tools, automating workflows, or reasoning about AI’s impact on software and infrastructure development.
At least 8 years of software development experience with a bachelor's degree; at least 5 years with a master's degree; at least 3 years with a PhD; or equivalent work experience.
At least 5 years of hands-on experience building, deploying, and operating workloads on Kubernetes.
Working experience with at least one major hyperscaler (AWS, Azure, or GCP), including its core compute, networking, and IAM primitives.
Track record of delivering complex features or services as a key contributor.
Solid working knowledge of containers, CI/CD, GitOps-based delivery, and infrastructure-as-code.
Strong programming skills in Go, or another systems language with willingness to work primarily in Go.
Must pass ServiceNow’s USFedPASS background screening, including credit and criminal/misdemeanor checks and a drug test.
Must be a US citizen, naturalized US citizen, or US permanent resident holding a green card.

Nice To Haves

Experience building Kubernetes controllers or working with the operator pattern.
Familiarity with container networking (CNI) or service mesh.
Experience with workload identity, mTLS, or secrets management.
Experience with observability, including metrics, tracing, and dashboards.
Experience with managed Kubernetes (EKS, AKS, or GKE) and infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform.

Responsibilities

Design, build, and operate cloud-native platform components and services, taking features from design through production.
Lead well-scoped team projects, converting requirements and rough ideas into technical designs and delivering the resulting work.
Collaborate with senior, staff, and principal engineers to align work with platform architecture and standards.
Contribute to reliability, scalability, and operability by writing tests and instrumentation, improving runbooks, and participating in on-call.
Build operators, controllers, automation, and platform services that other teams depend on.
Help onboard and mentor junior engineers through code review, design feedback, and pairing.