Staff Software Engineer – Compute Engineering

It all started when engineer Fred Luddy wrote code that automated a tedious task for his coworker, Phyllis. She cried tears of joy. That moment inspired Fred to build a company that could do that for everyone—freeing people from busywork so they could focus on meaningful work. Today, ServiceNow is the AI control tower for business reinvention. Our ServiceNow AI platform brings together any AI, any data, and any workflow— helping 85% of the Fortune 500® work smarter, faster, and better. We're building an AI-native culture where technology and talent are unstoppable together. And we're just getting started.

Join us to put AI to work for people.

Join the Compute Engineering organization, which builds the scheduling, capacity, and performance systems that run our platform across private and public cloud.

Level expectations

- Staff Level : Owns a component or feature area end to end, including scoping and design. Leads design discussions for a team, mentors IC3 engineers, and identifies risks before they become incidents.

Staff Level additionally

- Drives architectural discussions and influences technical decisions to simplify and streamline infrastructure.
- Has led the design and delivery of a component or feature area end to end.
- Has mentored engineers and helped them grow technically.

For positions in this location, we offer a base pay of $166,500 - $291,400 , plus equity (when applicable), variable/incentive compensation and benefits. Sales positions generally offer a competitive On Target Earnings (OTE) incentive compensation structure. Please note that the base pay shown is a guideline, and individual total compensation will vary based on factors such as qualifications, skill level, competencies, and work location. We also offer health plans, including flexible spending accounts, a 401(k) Plan with company match, ESPP, matching donations, a flexible time away plan and family leave programs. Compensation is based on the geographic location in which the role is located and is subject to change based on work location.

Responsibilities

Write and maintain software-defined, declarative infrastructure for compute at scale, with build systems, services, and automation that are specified, documented, and testable.; Build and improve components of the compute scheduler and resource-management systems, including placement, prioritization, and preemption.; Build tools for capacity data collection, forecasting, and reporting across private and public cloud.; Write performance and load tests, and help detect regressions in scheduling latency and throughput.; Research and adopt open-source and commercial tools and methods that improve compute efficiency and reliability.; Collaborate with networking, orchestration, and SRE teams on integration and design.; Take part in design reviews and on-call rotations, and contribute to post-incident improvements.; Use AI tools to speed up development and analysis, and help identify where ML can improve capacity or placement decisions.

Requirements

Experience in leveraging or critically thinking about how to integrate AI into work processes, decision-making, or problem-solving. This may include using AI-powered tools, automating workflows, analyzing AI-driven insights, or exploring AI's potential impact on the function or industry.; 8+ years of related experience in software engineering, cloud, or infrastructure automation with a Bachelor's degree, or 6+ years and a Master's degree, or a PhD with 3+ years with relevant research or industry experience, or equivalent experience.; Strong programming skills in Python, Go, or Java, with experience in related languages.; Experience building and maintaining Linux-based systems through infrastructure-as-code and configuration management tools, such as Terraform and Ansible.; Comfortable with virtualization and cloud infrastructure across private and public clouds, such as Azure, AWS, GCP.; Working understanding of IP networking, block and file storage, and load balancers.; Working understanding of internet protocols such as DNS, NTP, and HTTP.; Works independently across interconnected systems and investigates root causes without waiting for direction.; Experience integrating AI into work processes, decision-making, or problem solving.; Has a learning mindset and is motivated to build new skills and bring real improvement to internal and external customers.; Is an excellent oral and written communicator.; Has integrity and honesty, and upholds ServiceNow's values.

Nice to have

Experience with capacity planning, performance testing, or load testing.; Experience with Kubernetes, Slurm, or other large-scale schedulers or resource managers.; Experience with ML-driven scheduling, forecasting, or capacity optimization.; Experience with release management and large-scale server infrastructure.