Senior Staff Platform Engineer - Kubernetes - Federal

About the Position

We are seeking a Senior Staff Platform Engineer - Kubernetes - Federal to join our team. This is a Flexible (Hybrid) position requiring 2 days per week in a ServiceNow office location. Our offices are in San Francisco, CA; Pleasanton, CA; Santa Clara, CA; San Diego, CA; and Kirkland, WA. This role will involve supporting our US Regulated Markets.

Please Note: This position requires passing a ServiceNow background screening, USFedPASS (US Federal Personnel Authorization Screening Standards), including a credit check, criminal/misdemeanor check, and a drug test. Only US citizens, US naturalized citizens, or US Permanent Residents holding a green card will be considered.

Responsibilities

As a Senior Staff Software Engineer with the Data Platform organization, you will:

• Design, build, and operate components and services within our cloud-native platform.
• Lead well-scoped projects, turning requirements and rough ideas into solid technical designs and delivering them.
• Collaborate with senior, staff, and principal engineers to align your work with the platform’s architecture and standards.
• Contribute to the reliability, scalability, and operability of what you build by writing tests and instrumentation, improving runbooks, and participating in on-call.
• Spend most of your time hands-on building operators, controllers, automation, and platform services that other teams depend on.
• Help onboard and mentor junior engineers through code review, design feedback, and pairing.

Requirements

To be successful in this role, you must have:

• Experience leveraging or critically thinking about how to integrate AI into engineering work.
• 12+ years of software development experience with a Bachelor's degree; OR 8+ years with a Master's degree; OR 5+ years with a PhD; OR equivalent work experience.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience building, deploying, and operating workloads on Kubernetes.
• Working experience with at least one major hyperscaler (AWS, Azure, GCP), including its core compute, networking, and IAM primitives.
• A track record of delivering complex features or services as a key contributor.
• Solid working knowledge of containers, CI/CD and GitOps-based delivery, and infrastructure-as-code.
• Strong programming skills in Go (or another systems language with a willingness to work primarily in Go).

Nice to Have

• 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 - metrics, tracing, and dashboards.

We Offer

• Base pay of $171,900 - $300,800, plus equity (when applicable), variable/incentive compensation, and benefits.
• Health plans, including flexible spending accounts.
• 401(k) Plan with company match.
• ESPP, matching donations.
• Flexible time away plan and family leave programs.

About the Company

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.

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 law. In 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 [email protected] 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.