Senior Staff Data Platform Engineer - Data Access Team
Senior technical leader on ServiceNow's Data Access team, setting the architecture for the platform's ORM/data access layer that translates queries across PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle, Trino, and graph/time-series engines. Day to day: Java development, design docs, code reviews, debugging production issues, and mentoring.
- Compensation
- $201.3K–$352.3K / yr
- Location
- Santa Clara, CALIFORNIA, us
- Work setup
- Hybrid
- Seniority
- Staff
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- 5+ years
- Category
- Data engineering
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 12+ years software development experience with a Bachelor's degree; OR 8+ years with a Master's; OR 5+ years with a PhD; OR equivalent work experience
- Demonstrated track record of technical leadership at a Staff or Senior Staff level (or equivalent)
- Expert level with core Java development
- Advanced-Expert level backend platform development
- Expert understanding of object-oriented and modularized software best practices, with emphasis on Java
- Knowledge/experience with relational databases: PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL, Trino, etc.
- Strong knowledge of data structures, algorithms, OOP design, design patterns, and performance optimization at scale
- Experience with automated testing frameworks (JUnit, Selenium, TestNG) and integrating tests into CI/CD pipelines
- Deep understanding of software quality principles including reliability, observability, and production readiness
- Good understanding of cloud-based and distributed systems
- Experience leveraging or reasoning about integrating AI into engineering work
- Aptitude for learning new technologies quickly
- Demonstrated success completing complex, cross-team projects on time and with quality
- Experience troubleshooting difficult production issues (memory leaks, concurrency, locking, network problems) across the stack
- Track record of influencing architecture and engineering decisions across multiple teams without direct authority
- Strong written and verbal communication, including authoring design docs/RFCs and presenting technical strategy to senior leadership
Nice to have
- Familiarity with ServiceNow platform
- Familiarity with RDBMS internals
- Familiarity with Neo4J and graph databases
- Passionate about database technologies
- Experience with Unix shell
- Experience working in a DevOps environment
- Experience working in a customer-focused environment
Full description
Position Location:
This is a Flexible (Hybrid) position. Flexible positions require 2 days per week in a ServiceNow office location. We have offices in several locations, including San Francisco, CA; Pleasanton, CA; Santa Clara, CA; San Diego, CA; and Kirkland, WA
Are you energized by the power of enterprise-scale data to transform how we work? At ServiceNow, our mission is to “make the world of work, work better for people,” and our AI-driven platform is delivering on that promise. We're the #1 enterprise platform for uniting AI, data, and workflows — simplifying how people work, automating what slows them down, and enabling seamless, impactful experiences.
About the Role — Senior Staff Data Platform Software Engineer, Data Access Team
Every workflow, AI agent, and application on the ServiceNow AI Platform depends on one thing: getting the right data, fast, correctly, and securely. As part of the Persistence organization, you'll build the layer that makes that possible, the foundation under a platform that 85% of the Fortune 500 runs their business on.
You'll help:
- Give developers and customers faster, more reliable, more secure access to the data platform they build on
- Push the limits of IO, transactions, and concurrency across relational, time-series, and columnar engines
- Turn hard infrastructure problems into simple capabilities and automation for the developers and customers who build on the platform
About the Team
The Data Access team owns the ServiceNow ORM and data access layer. We take the platform's logical object model and translate every data request into high-performance queries against many database engines, including our homegrown RaptorDB (PostgreSQL), MariaDB, Oracle, and Trino, graph databases, and time-series databases. Our home-grown SQL generation engine, table management, and database metadata services are what let application developers build powerful applications across industries without ever having to manage engine complexity.
That makes us one of the most leveraged teams in the company. A single improvement to our engine speeds up thousands of applications and millions of queries, and getting it wrong is not an option.
As a Senior Staff Software Engineer, you'll be a key technical leader in the Platform Persistence group. You'll set the architectural direction for the data access layer as it expands into new engines and AI-driven workloads, and raise the bar for engineering craftsmanship across the organization.
Why you'll love it here
- Problems that are hard: Query translation across heterogeneous engines, concurrency and locking at scale, and production issues that only show up at extreme volume.