Principal Software Engineer

Responsibilities

You will lead the technical architecture of core components within the data lake and Context Engine, ensuring scalability and reliability. Additionally, you will drive the integration of large language models with enterprise ontologies to create governed, production-grade AI solutions.

Requirements

Candidates must have 10+ years of experience in software engineering with a focus on enterprise-grade data or SaaS products at scale. Proficiency in cloud-native architecture, distributed systems, and hands-on experience with LLMs and data platform technologies is required.

Skills

• Software engineering
• Cloud-native architecture
• Distributed systems
• Data modeling
• Python
• FastAPI
• Spark
• Kafka
• Iceberg
• Trino
• Kubernetes
• LLMs
• Ontologies
• LangChain
• LangGraph
• System architecture

Benefits

• Health plans
• Flexible spending accounts
• 401(k) Plan with company match
• ESPP
• Matching donations
• Flexible time away plan
• Family leave programs
• Equity

About this role

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
About the Team
The Context Engine is ServiceNow’s platform for connecting enterprise data, knowledge graphs, and AI workloads into a single, governed context layer. We’re building the data infrastructure that AI agents and applications will depend on as enterprises move from pilots to production.
Types of problems you’ll get to work on
You’ll own the technical architecture of core components across the data lake (Iceberg, Polaris, Trino) and the Context Engine, taking them from early release to real adoption with customers.
Your core focus areas:
Platform architecture. Lead design and implementation of lakehouse table services and context graph ingestion. Translate product requirements into scalable, observable plans with clear failure-recovery patterns.
LLMs and ontologies. Design how large language models and enterprise ontologies work together in the Context Engine: ontology-grounded retrieval and reasoning for LLMs, and LLM-assisted ontology construction, mapping, and evolution. Make both production-grade, observable, and governed.
1.0 to adoption. Drive the full arc from early release to meaningful adoption. Learn from how customers actually use the platform, not only what they say, and build feedback loops that improve adoption over time.
AI-native engineering. Set the bar for using AI in engineering itself, from AI-assisted code review and test generation to platform features that treat AI agents as first-class users.
Engineering leadership. Run deep architecture reviews, raise the technical bar across the team, and represent the platform in technical and leadership forums.
Cross-functional execution. Work with Product, Design, and partner engineering teams to align dependencies and ship coherent experiences.
Qualifications
To Be Successful in This Role
10+ years in software engineering, including shipping complex enterprise-grade data or SaaS products at scale.
Hands-on experience building products from zero, with ownership of both code and architecture decisions. Not prototypes.
Deep cloud-native architecture: multi-tenant design, large-scale API design (REST/gRPC), Kubernetes, observability, and multi-cloud platforms.
Distributed systems and event-driven architecture expertise, with a focus on reliability, fault tolerance, and operational observability.
Strong data modeling across relational, graph, columnar, and streaming systems, including open table formats such as Iceberg and query engines such as Trino.
Hands-on experience with data platform technologies: Spark for large-scale data processing, Kafka for event streaming, and Iceberg and Polaris for lakehouse table management and catalog services.
Production-grade Python, with hands-on experience building services with FastAPI.
Hands-on experience building LangChain or LangGraph applications, and MCP servers that expose platform capabilities to AI agents.
Hands-on experience running LLMs in production: prompt and context design, structured outputs, model evaluation, and cost and latency trade-offs.
Working knowledge of ontologies and semantic modeling (such as OWL, RDF, or SKOS), including how they constrain and ground LLM outputs.
Proficiency across the full engineering lifecycle, using AI daily to improve delivery velocity and software quality.
Technical influence without formal authority, with a record of driving architecture decisions across teams through clear reasoning.
Nice to Have
Knowledge graph or context graph experience, including entity resolution and graph query optimization.
Experience building ontologies or semantic layers at enterprise scale, including ontology alignment and schema mapping across data sources.
Experience fine-tuning or evaluating LLMs for entity extraction, classification, or relation extraction.
Data governance, lineage, or catalog product experience, including auditability and access control.
Production experience with data pipeline ingestion from SaaS sources.
Familiarity with OpenAPI and other AI interoperability standards.
Advanced degree in Computer Science, AI, or a related field.
Why join us
Intelligence is commoditizing. Context and execution are not. You’ll build the context layer that connects the whole stack: SENSE (any data) → DECIDE (any AI model) → ACT (any workflow) → GOVERN (identity + governance). You’ll report to the VP of Engineering, and the architectural inflection point is now.
For positions in this location, we offer a base pay of $221,200 - $387,100, 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 a...

About ServiceNow

Software Development · 10,001+ employees · headquartered in Santa Clara, CA