Principal Architect, AI-Driven Workflow Automation Platform

ServiceNow; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 221,000 - 387,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Health plans

401(k) with company match

Job summary

ServiceNow is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to tackle hard architecture problems across the workflow and automation stack, guiding AI-driven execution at scale. You’ll lead architecture across teams, build prototypes, and push for patterns that improve reliability and throughput.

You’ll mentor engineers, influence direction beyond your title, and drive the shift toward agentic, data‑driven workflows on a platform trusted by enterprise customers.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of engineering experience or equivalent practical experience.
• Strong experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems, workflow engines, integration frameworks, or cloud-scale infrastructure.
• Deep understanding of system design for scale, reliability, observability, fault tolerance, data quality, security, and production readiness.
• Strong technical depth in Java, Python, or similar programming languages.
• Proven ability to define technical direction, influence architecture across teams, and translate ambiguous product strategy into executable engineering plans.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture and technical direction for problem areas across the portfolio, working with product and engineering leads to identify blockers and opportunities.
• Build prototypes and reference implementations to prove architectural ideas.
• Test ideas with experiments and data to guide direction.
• Move workflow capabilities toward AI-native patterns and agentic execution at scale.
• Diagnose and fix architecture, data, UX, or cost issues to maximize value.
• Document patterns and tradeoffs to enable reuse across teams.
• Participate in design reviews and influence shipping speed versus long-term durability.
• Share successful patterns across engineering teams.

Skills

Java

Python

Distributed systems

System design

Technical leadership

Mentoring

AI-powered workflows

Job description

ServiceNow is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to tackle hard architecture problems across the workflow and automation stack, guiding AI-driven execution at scale. You’ll lead architecture across teams, build prototypes, and push for patterns that improve reliability and throughput.

You’ll mentor engineers, influence direction beyond your title, and drive the shift toward agentic, data‑driven workflows on a platform trusted by enterprise customers.