Principal Machine Learning Engineer, San Diego

Company Description

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.

Job Description

Overview
Enterprise AI is ServiceNow's horizontal capability team, building the operating model, technical foundation, and Customer Zero motion for AI governance at enterprise scale, including AI Control Tower, the AI agent orchestrator, and the AI agent fabric on the ServiceNow AI platform.

As Principal Engineer, Agentic AI Systems, you will serve as the senior-most technical multiplier for the Enterprise AI organization, setting architecture and technical direction for one of ServiceNow's biggest engineering opportunities: making an enterprise-scale workforce of AI agents governable, secure, observable, and worth trusting.

What You'll Do

Define the multi-year technical architecture for the AI Control Tower portfolio, agent governance, orchestration, lifecycle management, interoperability, observability, evaluation, and AI security, as one coherent platform.
Establish an AI-forward developer experience that embeds agents into planning, coding, testing, review, deployment, and operations, with the standards and guardrails to make it safe and measurable.
Define operational excellence for autonomous and semi-autonomous agents, including reliability, incident response, rollback, kill-switch, and auditability standards.
Act as the technical multiplier across AI engineering, data and ML, infrastructure, product, DevOps, security, and GRC, brokering cross-domain choices and resolving design conflicts on technical merit.
Turn ServiceNow's own Customer Zero experience into structured product feedback for AI Control Tower and related platform capabilities.
Prototype and incubate new patterns in multi-agent orchestration, agent evaluation, and AI governance automation, and publish reference architectures that accelerate reuse.
Mentor principal and senior engineers, raise hiring standards, and build the AI fluency that makes this team a model for AI-ready engineering.

Qualifications

To be successful in this role you have:

15+ years of software engineering experience, including 5+ years operating at a principal, senior staff, or director-equivalent scope, setting technical strategy across multi-team organizations without relying on direct reporting authority.
Deep, current, hands-on expertise in agentic AI and LLM-based systems, multi-agent orchestration, RAG, evaluation frameworks, LLMOps/MLOps, AI observability, and AI governance and security.
Experience architecting enterprise-scale cloud platforms, distributed systems, developer platforms, data platforms, or DevOps/CI-CD automation.
A demonstrated track record of transforming how engineering organizations build, test, and ship software, ideally with AI-assisted or agentic coding tools.
Strong judgment in ambiguous technical domains where architecture, product, security, operations, and business value intersect.
Builder credibility: you still write code, prototype fast, and lead by demonstration.
Executive communication skills, with the ability to frame technical strategy and trade-offs for VP, C-level, customer, pundits, and partner audiences.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with ServiceNow or a comparable enterprise workflow platform (ITSM, CMDB, GRC).
Experience with MCP, A2A, tool-calling architectures, or LLM/AI gateways.
Visible technical guidance through publications, talks, patents, or open-source contributions.

For positions in this location, we offer a base pay of $216,100 - $378,200, 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.

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 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.