Senior Staff Engineer: Platform Authorization & Security

ServiceNow; Santa Clara (CA); Remote; USD 191,000 - 334,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health plans

Flexible spending accounts

401(k) plan with company match

ESPP

Matching donations

Flexible time away plan

Family leave programs

Job summary

ServiceNow in Santa Clara, CA, seeks a Senior Staff Software Engineer to set architectural direction for the authorization layer and extend security controls across the product stack. You will guide cross-team initiatives, champion secure-by-default practices, and lead high-impact design discussions with engineering leadership.

You will own end-to-end features, drive performance, mentor engineers, and shape the technical strategy for scalable access control across services and AI integrations.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of software development experience with a Bachelor's degree; OR 8+ years with a Master's degree; OR 5+ years with a PhD; OR equivalent work experience.
• Strong knowledge of data structures, algorithms, object-oriented design, design patterns, and performance optimization at scale.
• Expert level understanding of best practices for object-oriented and modularized software, with emphasis on Java and Golang.
• Experience with automated testing frameworks (e.g., JUnit, Selenium, TestNG) and integrating tests into CI/CD pipelines.
• Deep understanding of software quality principles including reliability, observability, and production readiness
• Experience leveraging or critically thinking about how to integrate AI into engineering work - whether using AI-powered coding and operational tooling, automating workflows, or reasoning about how AI changes the way software and infrastructure are built.

Responsibilities

• Set the technical vision and architecture strategy for the authorization platform, balancing long-term scalability and delivery objectives while maintaining a secure-by-default posture.
• Work on core Authorization frameworks that touch every part of the product, keeping it high-quality, reliable, secure and fast.
• Own features from design through delivery, turning business requirements into well-architected, cross-team solutions.
• Lead design and code reviews, championing access control best practices, performance, maintainability, and testability across multiple teams
• Implement software that is simple to use to allow customers, applications to extend and customize the functionality to meet their specific needs.
• Define comprehensive test strategies covering functional, regression, integration and performance testing
• Diagnose, resolve, root cause and mitigation plans for the hardest production issues across the security stack
• Mentor engineers at every level and raise the technical bar across the organization.

Skills

Java

Golang

Data structures

Algorithms

OO design

Testing frameworks

CI/CD

Leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree or higher

Tools

JUnit

Selenium

TestNG

Kubernetes

Job description

ServiceNow in Santa Clara, CA, seeks a Senior Staff Software Engineer to set architectural direction for the authorization layer and extend security controls across the product stack. You will guide cross-team initiatives, champion secure-by-default practices, and lead high-impact design discussions with engineering leadership.

You will own end-to-end features, drive performance, mentor engineers, and shape the technical strategy for scalable access control across services and AI integrations.