Principal Software Engineer: AI-Driven Workflow Platform

ServiceNow; California (MO); On-site; USD 221,000 - 387,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health plans

401(k) plan

ESPP

Company match

Flexible time away

Family leave

Job summary

ServiceNow is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to tackle hard architecture problems across the workflow and automation stack, advancing toward agentic, AI-driven execution at scale. You will lead architecture, build prototypes, and run experiments with real data to prove ideas, while driving patterns that other teams reuse.

This role emphasizes collaboration, credibility, and long-term value over titles.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of engineering experience or equivalent.
• Experience building large-scale distributed systems: workflow engines, integration platforms, data-heavy products, or cloud infrastructure.
• Strong system design for scale, reliability, observability, and production readiness, including database architecture at high transaction volume.
• Deep Java or Python proficiency.
• Track record of defining technical direction and influencing architecture across teams.
• Mentoring senior engineers and building reusable patterns.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture and technical direction for problem areas across the portfolio, collaborating with product and engineering leads.
• Build prototypes and reference implementations to prove architectural ideas.
• Test ideas with real experiments and data, not just design docs.
• Move workflow capabilities toward AI-native patterns and agentic execution.
• Investigate underperforming agentic features and drive fixes across architecture, data, UX, or cost models.
• Document patterns and tradeoffs to enable reuse across teams.
• Participate in design reviews and weigh shipping speed against long-term durability with data.
• Share learnings across engineering teams to spread best practices.

Skills

Java

Python

Distributed systems

Architecture leadership

Mentoring

AI experience

Cloud infrastructure

Data security

Job description

ServiceNow is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to tackle hard architecture problems across the workflow and automation stack, advancing toward agentic, AI-driven execution at scale. You will lead architecture, build prototypes, and run experiments with real data to prove ideas, while driving patterns that other teams reuse.

This role emphasizes collaboration, credibility, and long-term value over titles.