Senior Staff Software Engineer Agentic AI

We are seeking a Senior Staff Engineer (IC5) who will set the technical vision and architecture across AI-native and cloud-native systems. The IC5 engineer is a strategic technical leader who drives innovation shapes engineering culture and influences the direction of the platform. They work on the highest-impact most complex problemsdefining approaches for novel AI/ML challenges establishing best practices at scale and ensuring the organizations technical strategy aligns with business objectives. This role combines deep technical expertise with broad systems thinking organizational influence and the ability to mentor and develop senior engineers. IC5 engineers are trusted advisors to leadership and across the organization.

What you get to do in this role:

Technical Vision & Strategy
   Define technical vision and strategy for AI-native and cloud-native systems; establish multi-year technology roadmaps and architectural patterns
   Lead the development of core platforms and infrastructure that enable AI-native development at scale (evaluation frameworks monitoring security deployment)
   Drive adoption of emerging AI/ML technologies frameworks and best practices; assess new services and tools for organizational fit
   Establish and evolve technical standards architectural principles and engineering excellence standards across the organization
   Own the technical roadmap for critical business initiatives involving AI; evaluate feasibility and set realistic timelines
   Champion investment in foundational improvements (refactoring testing infrastructure monitoring security) that have organization-wide impact
   Influence platform-level decisions involving cost latency reliability and model quality; balance business objectives with technical constraints
   Stay at the forefront of AI/ML research and industry trends; translate research into practical applications for the business

Organizational Leadership & Mentorship
   Mentor and develop senior engineers (IC3/IC4) and engineering leaders; support their growth into leadership and architectural roles
   Lead technical hiring; assess candidates at senior levels and contribute to building a world-class engineering team
   Establish and enforce engineering culture focused on technical excellence learning ownership and collaboration
   Lead by example in code quality testing discipline security practices and responsible AI principles
   Support manager and team leadership development; provide technical guidance to engineering managers and team leads
   Conduct architectural and design reviews; provide critical feedback that shapes the quality of technical decisions across the organization
   Foster knowledge sharing through documentation technical talks open-source contributions and community engagement
   Create and refine career paths and professional development opportunities for engineering team members

Architecture & Systems Design
   Design and architect large complex systems involving multiple teams cloud infrastructure and sophisticated AI/ML components
   Lead the design of evaluation frameworks observability systems and production monitoring for AI-driven features at scale
   Establish security architecture and responsible AI guardrails that scale across the platform
   Design high-performance data platforms embedding systems and retrieval pipelines that serve organization-wide needs
   Evaluate and guide adoption of new cloud services managed AI services and technologies
   Drive architectural decisions that balance competing concerns: performance cost scalability reliability developer experience and business value
   Conduct research and prototyping on novel technical approaches; lead exploration of emerging AI/ML techniques
   Lead root cause analysis and architectural reviews for critical incidents; drive improvements to prevent recurrence

Cross-Organizational Influence & Communication
   Communicate technical vision and strategy to executives product leadership and engineering teams; influence organizational priorities
   Partner with product design and domain specialists to define ambitious technical roadmaps aligned with business strategy
   Represent the engineering organization in high-stakes customer and partnership discussions; build credibility and trust
   Lead or contribute to technical due diligence for acquisitions partnerships and strategic technology evaluations
   Translate complex AI/ML concepts trade-offs and limitations for audiences ranging from technical engineers to executive leadership
   Advocate for technical health engineering culture and long-term sustainability over short-term pressures
   Participate in industry forums conferences and communities; enhance the organizations external reputation
   Lead technical interviews and design discussions; mentor interviewing skills across the engineering organization

Software Development Excellence & Innovation
   Develop innovative solutions to the organizations most complex technical challenges particularly around AI/ML integration and distributed systems
   Prototype and validate new approaches; share learnings and best practices across the organization
   Contribute to critical code paths and architectures; model best practices in code quality testing and maintainability
   Build evaluation frameworks monitoring systems and testing infrastructure that scale across the organization
   Implement security best practices responsible AI guardrails and compliance mechanisms that serve as templates for the organization
   Work with cloud services managed AI services Kubernetes and infrastructure-as-code at an architectural level
   Troubleshoot and resolve the most complex production issues; establish practices to prevent future incidents
   Contribute to open-source projects research initiatives or industry collaboration where aligned with business strategy

ServiceNow Platform Strategy & Excellence
   Define platform architecture and integration patterns for AI-native ServiceNow applications
   Establish best practices and architectural standards for ServiceNow development across the organization
   Lead technical decisions on ServiceNow platform capabilities vs. custom development trade-offs
   Drive adoption of ServiceNow platform features and managed services; evaluate and recommend platform upgrades
   Partner with ServiceNow product teams and technical account managers on advanced integrations and customizations
   Mentor senior engineers on ServiceNow platform architecture and advanced development patterns
   Ensure applications remain compatible with ServiceNow platform updates and evolution

Customer Strategy & Support Leadership
   Shape organizational approach to customer support and issue resolution; establish standards for response and resolution
   Lead customer-critical incident response and complex troubleshooting; provide technical escalation path
   Engage with strategic customers on technical topics roadmap alignment and complex integration challenges
   Gather and synthesize customer feedback to inform product and platform strategy
   Establish programs and practices that improve customer experience and reduce support burden
   Work with customer success leadership to align technical capabilities with customer success metrics
   Lead technical due diligence and support in customer selection and onboarding processes

Qualifications :

To Be Successful in this role you have:

• 12 years of software development experience with a Bachelors degree; OR 8 years with a Masters degree; OR 5 years with a PhD; OR equivalent work experience
• 4 years in cloud-native and AI-native systems or equivalent senior-level roles
• 5 years of experience with LLM/AI systems at scale including prompt engineering agent design retrieval systems and production AI/ML services
• 5 years of hands-on experience building and scaling systems with third-party AI/ML services and platform APIs across multiple cloud providers
• 3 years of experience designing and building applications on platform-as-a-service or SaaS platforms; deep expertise with ServiceNow platform at scale
• Expert-level proficiency in Python Java and JavaScript/GlideScript; deep expertise in ServiceNow scripting APIs and platform architecture
• Demonstrated expertise in distributed systems design microservices architecture and large-scale systems
• Proven track record designing high-performance mission-critical data pipelines embedding systems and vector databases
• Expert knowledge of LLM orchestration frameworks RAG architectures retrieval optimization and vector database technologies
• Deep expertise with cloud computing (AWS/GCP/Azure) managed AI services and infrastructure-as-code
• Strong background in Kubernetes containerization and cloud-native deployment patterns
• Expertise in building evaluation frameworks metrics systems and production monitoring for AI/ML systems
• Experience with and strong opinions about secure coding practices responsible AI and compliance requirements
• Exceptional communication skills; ability to influence across levels of technical seniority and non-technical audiences; demonstrated customer engagement experience
• Proven ability to lead large cross-functional technical initiatives; track record of significant technical accomplishments
• Strong background in software architecture system design and technical strategy; experience shaping platform strategy and roadmap
• Experience mentoring senior engineers engineering managers or technical leaders
• Experience leading customer-critical initiatives or providing technical leadership on strategic accounts
• Bachelors degree in computer science engineering or related field; advanced degree or significant AI/ML research/publications is a plus
• Active engagement with the broader engineering and AI/ML community (conferences publications open-source etc.)
• Demonstrated thought leadership in AI-native development cloud architecture or software engineering

Additional Information :

Work Personas

We approach our distributed world of work with flexibility and trust. Work personas (flexible remote or required in office) are categories that are assigned to ServiceNow employees depending on the nature of their work and their assigned work location. Learn more here. To determine eligibility for a work persona ServiceNow may confirm the distance between your primary residence and the closest ServiceNow office using a third-party service.

Equal Opportunity Employer

ServiceNow is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race color religion sex sexual orientation national origin age disability gender identity  veteran status or any other category protected by addition all qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with legal requirements. 

Accommodations

We strive to create an accessible and inclusive experience for all candidates. If you require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application process or are unable to use this online application and need an alternative method to apply please contact for assistance. 

Export Control Regulations

For positions requiring access to controlled technology subject to export control regulations including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR) ServiceNow may be required to obtain export control approval from government authorities for certain individuals. All employment is contingent upon ServiceNow obtaining any export license or other approval that may be required by relevant export control authorities. 

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Remote Work :

No

Employment Type :

Full-time