Distinguished Cloud Platform Engineer (Kubernetes)

ServiceNow; San Diego (CA); Hybrid; USD 254,500 - 445,400; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health plans

401(k) with company match

ESPP

Matching donations

Flexible time off

Family leave programs

Job summary

ServiceNow is seeking a Distinguished Engineer to set the technical direction for our cloud-native platform, guiding Kubernetes, distributed systems, and hyperscaler infrastructure at scale. You will own the hardest problems across the platform, mentor engineers, and partner with senior leaders to drive architectural decisions while balancing trade-offs between self-managed and managed options.

The role supports a flexible, hybrid work model with offices in Santa Clara, San Diego, and Kirkland,

Qualifications

• Over 12 years designing, building and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• Deep Kubernetes experience across multi-cluster, multi-region, multi-tenant deployments.
• Hands-on with major hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP) and their managed Kubernetes services.
• Proven track record of technical leadership across engineering teams.
• Expertise in operator patterns, IaC, GitOps, and container networking.
• Strong Go programming skills and fluency in cloud-native ecosystems.

Responsibilities

• Set the technical direction for the cloud-native platform across multiple teams, defining architecture and standards for Kubernetes, distributed systems, and hyperscaler infrastructure.
• Own the hardest, most ambiguous platform problems, including multi-cloud topology and control-plane design.
• Partner with senior technical leaders to drive architectural decisions and promote best practices across the platform ecosystem.
• Identify and mitigate technical risks with executive visibility, balancing managed vs. self-managed tradeoffs and substrate portability.
• Design and build critical components such as control planes, operators, and infrastructure abstractions for broader use.
• Mentor staff and principal engineers to grow the organization’s technical leadership.

Skills

Go

Kubernetes at scale

Hyperscalers

Distributed systems design

Technical leadership

GitOps

Crossplane / IaC

Operator pattern

Container networking (CNI)

Service mesh

Tools

EKS

AKS

GKE

Crossplane

Job description

ServiceNow is seeking a Distinguished Engineer to set the technical direction for our cloud-native platform, guiding Kubernetes, distributed systems, and hyperscaler infrastructure at scale. You will own the hardest problems across the platform, mentor engineers, and partner with senior leaders to drive architectural decisions while balancing trade-offs between self-managed and managed options.

The role supports a flexible, hybrid work model with offices in Santa Clara, San Diego, and Kirkland,