[Skip to main content](#main-content) [OpenNash Jobs](https://jobs.opennash.com/) [Hiring report](/reports/hiring/) · [All ServiceNow jobs](https://jobs.opennash.com/companies/servicenow/) · [Search jobs](/search/) ServiceNow · Santa Clara, CA # Staff Software Engineer - Federal Santa Clara, CALIFORNIA, United States Full-time Senior individual contributor $176,100 - $308,200 Software Engineering Listed on ServiceNow’s official careers site. Posted September 25, 2026. Check that it is still open and apply there. [Apply on ServiceNow’s careers site →](https://jobs.smartrecruiters.com/ServiceNow/744000151859902-staff-software-engineer-federal) [OpenNash Jobs](https://jobs.opennash.com/) / [ServiceNow](https://jobs.opennash.com/companies/servicenow/) / Staff Software Engineer - Federal ## Job description ### Position Location This is a Flexible (Hybrid) position based in Santa Clara, CA. Flexible positions require 2 days per week in our Santa Clara office location. ### Please Note This position will include supporting our US Regulated Markets. “This position requires passing a ServiceNow background screening, USFedPASS (US Federal Personnel Authorization Screening Standards). This includes a credit check, criminal/misdemeanor check and taking a drug test. Any employment is contingent upon passing the screening. Due to Federal requirements, only US citizens, US naturalized citizens or US Permanent Residents, holding a green card, will be considered. As a Staff Software Engineer, you will independently lead the design, development, and delivery of complex, high-impact AI-native and cloud-native systems. The IC4 engineer takes ownership of critical components or features, sets technical direction within their domain, and serves as a technical resource to peers and junior engineers. They combine deep software engineering fundamentals with hands-on expertise in AI/ML integration, cloud architecture, and production systems. This role requires the ability to balance technical depth with organizational impact, working across teams to solve ambiguous problems and drive platform improvements. ### What you get to do in this role Responsibility Area: Technical Leadership & Architecture - Lead the design and architecture of complex, production-critical AI-native systems, including LLM integrations, agentic workflows, retrieval pipelines, and inference services - Own end-to-end delivery of medium-to-large features or systems, including specification, design, implementation, testing, deployment, and production monitoring - Make informed architectural and technical trade-off decisions between latency, cost, scalability, reliability, and model quality - Establish evaluation frameworks, testing strategies, and production monitoring for AI-driven features; drive adoption of eval-driven development practices - Design and optimize high-performance data pipelines, embedding systems, and vector stores handling millions of rows and complex retrieval scenarios - Champion security best practices, including prompt-injection defense, data privacy, PII handling, responsible AI guardrails, and compliance with regulatory requirements - Participate in architectural reviews across teams and contribute to platform-level technical decisions - Stay current with emerging AI/ML frameworks, services, and techniques; evaluate and recommend adoption where applicable Responsibility Area: Mentorship & Technical Influence - Mentor junior and mid-level engineers (IC2/IC3) through pair programming, design reviews, architecture discussions, and hands-on coaching - Conduct thorough code reviews, including evaluation of prompts, agent logic, retrieval strategies, and AI/model behavior validation - Identify technical debt and improvement opportunities; advocate for and lead initiatives to address them - Share knowledge through documentation, brown-bag sessions, and architectural guidance - Contribute to hiring and interview processes; provide technical assessment and feedback on engineering candidates - Model best practices in software craftsmanship, testing discipline, and debugging methodology - Support onboarding of new team members and ensure knowledge transfer across projects Responsibility Area: Cross-Functional Collaboration & Communication - Work closely with product management, domain specialists, and other engineering teams to define requirements and technical specifications - Translate complex technical concepts and AI trade-offs for non-technical stakeholders (product, leadership, customers) - Lead root cause analysis for customer-reported issues, including those involving model behavior, hallucinations, retrieval quality, and distributed system complexity - Participate in design reviews, technical planning sessions, and retrospectives; contribute perspectives on technical feasibility and risk - Communicate clearly about design decisions, implementation challenges, AI limitations, and production incidents - Build and maintain relationships with adjacent teams and external partners where applicable - Proactively identify opportunities to improve development processes, tooling, and team efficiency Responsibility Area: Software Development Excellence - Develop robust, maintainable, and well-tested AI-native software using Python, Java, and JavaScript as appropriate - Build comprehensive unit tests, integration tests, and AI evaluation harnesses (accuracy, regression, hallucination detection) - Troubleshoot complex issues in distributed systems, probabilistic models, and cloud infrastructure; isolate root causes efficiently - Implement secure coding practices and responsible AI guardrails throughout the development lifecycle - Manage deployment, monitoring, and iteration of features in production; respond to performance issues and model drift - Work with cloud services (AWS/GCP/Azure), managed AI services (Bedrock, Vertex AI, Azure OpenAI), Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines - Contribute to code and architecture standards; ensure adherence to established best practices Responsibility Area: ServiceNow Platform Development - Design and develop custom applications, extensions, and integrations on the ServiceNow platform - Develop workflows, business rules, and automation using ServiceNow scripting (JavaScript, GlideScript, REST APIs) - Build data models, forms, and dashboards for ServiceNow applications; optimize database queries for performance - Integrate third-party AI/ML services and custom APIs with ServiceNow platform services - Contribute to and maintain ServiceNow plugin and app architecture; follow ServiceNow best practices and coding standards - Participate in ServiceNow upgrades and configuration management; ensure compatibility with platform updates - Mentor junior engineers on ServiceNow platform capabilities and development patterns Responsibility Area: Customer Support & Product Excellence - Participate in customer issue triage and root cause analysis for production ServiceNow application issues - Work closely with customer success and support teams to understand and resolve complex technical issues - Provide technical guidance to customers on application usage, configuration, and troubleshooting - Identify patterns in customer issues and drive improvements to prevent recurrence - Contribute to customer documentation and internal knowledge bases - Support customer escalations; provide timely resolutions to critical issues affecting customer operations - Gather customer feedback and communicate product improvement opportunities back to product management ## Qualifications To be successful in this role you have: 8+ years of software development experience with a Bachelor's degree; OR 6+ years with a Master's degree; OR 3+ years with a PhD; OR equivalent work experience. Practical software development experience, with 5+ years working with modern cloud-native and AI-native systems - 3+ years of hands-on experience with LLM prompt engineering, agent design, and retrieval systems (RAG, semantic search, knowledge bases) - 3+ years of demonstrated experience integrating third-party AI/ML services and platform APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex AI, etc.) - 2+ years of hands-on experience developing applications and extensions on the ServiceNow platform - Strong proficiency in JavaScript/GlideScript, Python, and Java; familiarity with ServiceNow scripting patterns and APIs - Solid understanding of ServiceNow data model, form/workflow design, and business process automation - Solid understanding of microservices architecture, REST/streaming APIs, and modern backend frameworks (Spring Boot, FastAPI, etc.) Experience designing and optimizing high-performance data pipelines, embedding systems, and vector stores at scale - Demonstrated expertise in LLM orchestration frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, Semantic Kernel) and vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, pgvector, etc.) Experience with cloud computing platforms and managed AI services (AWS, GCP, Azure); hands-on experience with infrastructure-as-code - Proficiency with Kubernetes, containerization, CI/CD pipelines, and automated testing frameworks Experience developing and debugging evaluation harnesses, benchmarks, and metrics for AI/ML features - Proven ability to troubleshoot and isolate root causes in complex, distributed, and probabilistic systems - Strong communication skills; ability to explain technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences; customer-facing experience a plus Experience with Agile and Scrum development methodologies; comfort with iterative development and continuous improvement - Demonstrated ability to engage with customers, understand their needs, and support issue resolution - Track record of taking ownership of significant technical initiatives and delivering them successfully - Demonstrated mentorship of junior engineers or technical leadership in previous roles For positions in this location, we offer a base pay of $176,100 - $308,200, 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. ## At a glance - Posted by the employer: Sep 25, 2026 - First seen by OpenNash: Oct 10, 2026 - Last checked: Oct 17, 2026 - Listed for: 22 days - Location: Santa Clara, CALIFORNIA, United States - Employment type: Full-time - Pay: $176,100 - $308,200[Apply on ServiceNow’s careers site →](https://jobs.smartrecruiters.com/ServiceNow/744000151859902-staff-software-engineer-federal) ## More jobs at ServiceNow ### [AI Engineering - Assoc Software Engineer Internships - Summer 2027 (Bachelors)](https://jobs.opennash.com/companies/servicenow/jobs/a0b97b7c533bcb807e1e/) Santa Clara, CALIFORNIA, United States ### [AI Engineering - Software Engineer Internships - Summer 2027 (Masters)](https://jobs.opennash.com/companies/servicenow/jobs/dbe83dd1ff94d2aa96b6/) Santa Clara, CALIFORNIA, United States ### [Data Platform Software Engineer](https://jobs.opennash.com/companies/servicenow/jobs/477b24f1b3f9a131a2df/) Santa Clara, CALIFORNIA, United States ### [Manager, Software Engineering Omni Channel Management](https://jobs.opennash.com/companies/servicenow/jobs/ab87d29c0ede9d169c04/) Santa Clara, CALIFORNIA, United States ### [Principal Data Platform Software Engineer (Database Operations)](https://jobs.opennash.com/companies/servicenow/jobs/4b87ec72325d1c9aa941/) Santa Clara, CALIFORNIA, United States ## Similar jobs at other companies ### [Staff Software Engineer](https://jobs.opennash.com/companies/cardinal-health/jobs/b6243cd6f09fc50fb446/) Cardinal Health · International ### [Software Engineer Staff](https://jobs.opennash.com/companies/lockheed-martin/jobs/d9130252972e507de227/) Lockheed Martin · Littleton, CO ### [Software Engineer Staff - E4](https://jobs.opennash.com/companies/lockheed-martin/jobs/908af81cfa4d89f7ce8a/) Lockheed Martin · Orlando, FL ### [Staff Software Engineer](https://jobs.opennash.com/companies/jones-lang-lasalle/jobs/0073e773eeb811935866/) Jones Lang LaSalle · Chicago, IL OpenNash lists jobs from employers’ own careers sites and does not handle applications. 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