Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Santa Clara

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

In this role you will play a key role in defining and building the cloud-native infrastructure that powers ServiceNow's next generation of Agentic AI and conversational experiences. As a Principal Engineer, you will drive architecture and technical strategy across multiple engineering organizations while remaining deeply hands-on in solving complex platform and scalability challenges.

Lead the technical direction, architecture, and evolution of cloud-native platform services supporting Agentic AI initiatives.
Drive the design and implementation of scalable Kubernetes-based infrastructure that supports AI/ML and conversational workloads at enterprise scale.
Partner with engineering, infrastructure, product, and platform teams to modernize critical services and accelerate the transition to next-generation architectures.
Design and build highly available, secure, observable, and resilient distributed systems supporting mission-critical customer workloads.
Establish architectural standards, engineering best practices, and platform patterns that can be leveraged across multiple product teams.
Drive automation across infrastructure provisioning, deployment pipelines, service operations, monitoring, and incident response.
Evaluate and adopt emerging technologies in cloud-native infrastructure, Kubernetes, AI platforms, and distributed systems.
Mentoring senior engineers and providing technical leadership through influence across organizational boundaries.
Lead architecture reviews and provide guidance on scalability, reliability, performance, security, and operational excellence.
Partner closely with teams developing AI-powered experiences to ensure underlying infrastructure can support future growth and innovation.
Work with stakeholders across the organization to balance long-term platform investments with near-term product delivery goals.
Own technical initiatives from concept through production deployment while helping shape the future direction of ServiceNow's Agentic AI platform.

Qualifications

To be successful in this role, you have:

15+ years of experience building large-scale distributed systems, cloud platforms, infrastructure services, or enterprise SaaS products.
Deep expertise in Java, Go, Python, or similar systems programming languages.
Proven experience designing, building, and operating highly scalable cloud-native architectures.
Expert knowledge of Kubernetes, containers, orchestration platforms, and modern cloud infrastructure.
Experience building platform services used across multiple engineering teams and products.
Strong understanding of distributed systems principles, including resiliency, fault tolerance, scalability, performance optimization, and observability.
Experience with AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud at large scale.
Expertise in CI/CD, infrastructure automation, GitOps, Terraform, Helm, ArgoCD, or comparable technologies.
Strong software engineering fundamentals including object-oriented design, system design, architecture patterns, and performance optimization.
Experience leading technical strategy and influencing architecture across multiple organizations without direct authority.
Demonstrated track record building new platform capabilities from concept through large-scale production adoption.
Strong communication skills with the ability to explain technical tradeoffs to engineering and executive leadership.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience building infrastructure for AI/ML, generative AI, agentic systems, or conversational platforms.
Experience supporting GPU workloads, model serving, inference platforms, or AI runtime environments.
Experience with internal developer platforms, platform engineering, SRE, or cloud infrastructure organizations.
Knowledge of multi-agent architectures, orchestration platforms, workflow engines, or large-scale automation systems.
Experience with modern observability platforms including OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, or equivalent technologies.
Experience modernizing legacy architectures into cloud-native distributed services.

For positions in this location, we offer a base pay of $240,100 - $420,200, 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.