Staff Machine Learning Engineer

ServiceNow

Santa Clara (CA)

On-site

USD 176,000 - 308,000

Full time

10 hours ago

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Benefits offered by this job

Health plans

401(k) Plan with company match

ESP P (Employee Stock Purchase Plan)

Matching donations

Flexible time away plan

Family leave programs

Job summary

ServiceNow is seeking a Staff AI Engineer in Santa Clara to own significant parts of the agent harness—the infrastructure that lets AI agents reason over enterprise data, act across workflows, and run safely at Fortune 500 scale.

You will design the orchestration layer, own fault tolerance and latency, and implement observability, cost attribution, and robust prompt management to support production-grade AI work across business functions.

Qualifications

7+ years building production software systems with a strong track record on reliability, performance, and scalability.
Hands-on experience shipping generative AI products—owning AI-powered features production users depend on.
Solid depth in how large language models work: failure modes, context constraints, and how prompt design shapes model behavior at scale.
Experience with Python, Kubeflow, SageMaker, Vertex AI or AzureML, SQL.
Practical prompt engineering experience: designing, versioning, and evaluating prompts across model updates or A/B tests.
A real track record in eval engineering — evaluation suites designed, shipped, and used to drive quality decisions in production AI systems.
Cost and efficiency awareness at the system level: model routing, inference cost, and latency tradeoffs in production.
Strong software engineering fundamentals: distributed systems, API design, testing discipline.

Responsibilities

Design and build the agent execution harness — the orchestration layer that routes inputs, manages context, invokes tools, handles retries, and surfaces execution state across multi-step workflows.
Own the runtime's fault tolerance, latency, and throughput; design for enterprise workflows that cannot fail silently or unpredictably.
Instrument the harness with tracing, cost attribution, and latency visibility to reason about agent behavior in production.
Build prompt management systems — versioning, templating, and evaluation — to keep agent behavior stable across model updates.
Design and own evaluation frameworks (unit evals, integration evals, production monitors) that measure agent quality and drive data-informed decisions.
Integrate with frontier LLMs, manage routing, cost and latency trade-offs in production.
Set technical standards through architecture decisions, code reviews, and coaching — especially on agentic design patterns and production AI discipline.
Define where agent logic lives — tool calls, sub-agents, hardcoded paths, or human escalation.

Skills

Production systems

AI product features

Large model fundamentals

Prompt engineering

Eval engineering

Distributed systems

Software engineering

Startup environment

Tools

Python

Kubeflow

SageMaker

Vertex AI

AzureML

SQL

Job description

Company Description

It all started when engineer Fred Luddy wrote code that automated a tedious task for his coworker, Phyllis. She cried tears of joy. That moment inspired Fred to build a company that could do that for everyone—freeing people from busywork so they could focus on meaningful work. Today, ServiceNow is the AI control tower for business reinvention. Our ServiceNow AI platform brings together any AI, any data, and any workflow— helping 85% of the Fortune 500® work smarter, faster, and better. We're building an AI-native culture where technology and talent are unstoppable together. And we're just getting started.

Company Description

Join us to put AI to work for people.

Job Description

About the Team

The Agentic Engineering organization at ServiceNow is the customer-obsessed engineering group that builds a conversational AI experience that turns enterprise intent into completed work. We advance how enterprise AI reasons, remembers, and executes.

The Agent Orchestration team — the team you'll join — owns the execution core: the agent harness, orchestration runtime, multi-agent coordination, memory management, and the evaluation frameworks that ensure agents behave correctly in production. Every autonomous action Otto promises depends on what this team ships.

By joining our team, you’ll be at the forefront of our AI transformation journey, backed by the global scale of ServiceNow and the agility of a high-growth environment. We are looking for world-class talent to help us extend agentic AI to every employee across every corner of the business

What You Get To Do In This Role

As a Staff AI Engineer, you will own significant parts of the agent harness — the infrastructure layer that enables AI agents to reason over real enterprise data, take action across workflows, and run safely at Fortune 500 scale.

Harness engineering: Design and build the agent execution harness — the orchestration layer that routes inputs, manages context, invokes tools, handles retries, and surfaces execution state across multi-step agentic workflows
Reliability at scale: Own the runtime's fault tolerance, latency, and throughput; design for enterprise workflows that cannot fail silently or unpredictably
Observability: Instrument the harness with tracing, cost attribution, and latency visibility so the team can reason about agent behavior in production and catch failures before customers do
Prompt infrastructure: Build prompt management systems — versioning, templating, and systematic evaluation — that keep agent behavior stable across model updates and configuration changes
Eval engineering: Design and own evaluation frameworks (unit evals, integration evals, production monitors) that measure agent quality, catch regressions, and drive data-informed decisions
LLM integration: Integrate with and abstract over frontier LLMs, managing model routing, fallback strategies, cost, and latency trade - offs in production
Technical leadership: Set technical standards through architecture decisions, code reviews, and coaching — particularly on agentic design patterns and production AI discipline.
System boundary design: Define where agent logic lives — what's a tool call, a sub-agent, a hardcoded path, or a human escalation — and establish those design standards across the team

Qualifications

To be successful in this role you have:

7+ years building production software systems with a strong track record on reliability, performance, and scalability
Hands-on experience shipping generative AI products — not just integrating LLM APIs or building prototypes, but owning AI-powered features that production users depend on
Solid depth in how large language models work: failure modes, context constraints, and how prompt design shapes model behavior at scale
Python, Kubeflow,Experience with SageMaker, Vertex AI or AzureML, SQL
Practical prompt engineering experience: systematically designing, versioning, and evaluating prompts across model updates or A/B evaluation cycles
A real track record in eval engineering — not just familiarity, but a portfolio of evaluation suites designed, shipped, and used to drive quality decisions in production AI systems
Cost and efficiency awareness at the system level: experience reasoning about model routing, inference cost, and latency tradeoffs in production
Strong software engineering fundamentals: distributed systems, API design, and testing discipline
Comfort operating in fast-moving, ambiguous, startup-like AI product environments

Nice to Have

Experience with multi-agent coordination patterns (A2A, MCP)
Familiarity with agent frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar)
Prior experience shipping AI systems in enterprise software
Experience with AI observability tooling (tracing, cost tracking, LLM-specific monitoring)
Familiarity with cloud-native infrastructure, service observability, logging, monitoring, reliability engineering, and production troubleshooting

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.

Work Personas

We approach our distributed world of work with flexibility and trust. Work personas (flexible, remote, or required in office) are categories that are assigned to ServiceNow employees depending on the nature of their work and their assigned work location. Learn more here. To determine eligibility for a work persona, ServiceNow may confirm the distance between your primary residence and the closest ServiceNow office using a third-party service.

Equal Opportunity Employer

ServiceNow is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, gender identity, veteran status, or any other category protected by law. In addition, all qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with legal requirements.

Accommodations

We strive to create an accessible and inclusive experience for all candidates. If you require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application process, or are unable to use this online application and need an alternative method to apply, please contact globaltalentss@servicenow.com for assistance.

Export Control Regulations

For positions requiring access to controlled technology subject to export control regulations, including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR), ServiceNow may be required to obtain export control approval from government authorities for certain individuals. All employment is contingent upon ServiceNow obtaining any export license or other approval that may be required by relevant export control authorities.

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