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.

Join us to put AI to work for people.

About the role:

ServiceNow is seeking a Staff Software Engineer - SRE & AIOps to contribute to infrastructure automation, operational resilience, and toil elimination across our hybrid cloud and data center operations. Embedded within the Site Reliability & Database Engineering organization, you will implement automation-first systems that reduce manual intervention, accelerate incident remediation, and enable our global engineering teams to operate reliably at scale.

This role combines solid hands-on technical expertise in Kubernetes, cloud platforms, and DevOps practices with growing technical leadership capabilities. You will contribute to SRE tooling design, develop auto-remediation capabilities, and help establish patterns that maintain ServiceNow's cloud platform reliability while minimizing operational toil across follow-the-sun global teams.

What you get to do in this role:

Deploy, operate, and troubleshoot production Kubernetes clusters across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, maintaining operational standards and supporting high-velocity application deployments.
Implement and maintain closed-loop auto-remediation systems that detect, classify, and resolve transient infrastructure failures, leveraging automation frameworks and machine learning insights to reduce MTTR and on-call burden.
Contribute to the design and evolution of SRE tooling stack, including monitoring platforms, incident management systems, log aggregation, and observability integrations that support global on-call operations.
Develop and maintain SLO frameworks, alerting policies, and automated runbooks that empower on-call engineers to resolve issues autonomously while managing alert fatigue.
Build and maintain Infrastructure-as-Code frameworks and GitOps pipelines that enable reproducible infrastructure deployments across hybrid and multi-cloud environments with security and compliance guardrails.
Support hybrid cloud and data center operations, including on-premises infrastructure, public cloud environments, and workload optimization across multi-region deployments.
Contribute to adoption of containerization, microservices, and DevOps patterns across engineering teams, establishing CI/CD best practices and network security controls.
Support on-call rotation operations and incident response processes across different time zones, helping develop runbooks and contributing to post-incident reviews that drive continuous improvement.
Share knowledge and mentor junior SRE engineers on reliability patterns, incident investigation techniques, and automation best practices.
Champion a culture of blameless incident analysis, data-driven decision-making, and continuous improvement through knowledge sharing and documentation.
Identify and systematically automate repetitive operational tasks, from infrastructure provisioning to incident response, improving team efficiency and capacity.

To be successful in this role you have:

Kubernetes Proficiency: Solid hands-on experience operating production Kubernetes clusters, including deployment models, pod orchestration, resource management, network policies, and troubleshooting runtime issues.
Incident Remediation Experience: Demonstrated experience designing and implementing automated remediation systems, including alert automation, runbook development, and self-healing mechanisms.
Cloud Platform Knowledge: Strong hands-on experience with AWS (EKS, EC2, RDS) and/or Azure (AKS, VMs) or GCP (GKE), with understanding of core SRE-related services.
DevOps & IaC Skills: Solid experience with Infrastructure-as-Code tools (Terraform, CloudFormation) and GitOps practices.
SRE Tooling Familiarity: Working knowledge of observability platforms, incident management systems, and log aggregation tools.
Distributed Systems Understanding: Understanding of distributed system challenges, fault tolerance, and resilience patterns.
On-Call Operations: Experience participating in on-call rotations and understanding 24/7 operational models, runbook development, and escalation procedures.
Cloud & Hybrid Operations: Hands-on experience working with cloud infrastructure and understanding hybrid cloud concepts.
Systems Administration: Strong foundation in Linux system administration, performance troubleshooting, and scripting (Python, Go, or Bash).
Collaborative Mindset: Ability to work effectively with infrastructure and application teams, contribute to technical discussions, and help drive reliability improvements

Qualifications

Experience in leveraging or critically thinking about how to integrate AI into work processes, decision-making, or problem-solving. This may include using AI-powered tools, automating workflows, analyzing AI-driven insights, or exploring AI's potential impact on the function or industry.
8+ years in software engineering or infrastructure operations, with 3+ years in SRE, DevOps, or cloud platform engineering roles with a Bachelor's degree; or 6 years and a Master's degree; or a PhD with 3 years of experience; or equivalent work experience.
2+ years of hands-on experience working with production Kubernetes clusters.
Proficiency in at least one Infrastructure-as-Code tool: Terraform, CloudFormation, or equivalent.
Demonstrable hands-on experience with at least one major cloud platform: AWS, Azure, or GCP.
Experience operating in on-call environments and participating in incident response.
Experience implementing or improving automated remediation and alert systems.
Strong foundation in Linux system administration, performance troubleshooting, and scripting (Python, Go, Bash).
Demonstrated commitment to reliability engineering and continuous improvement through hands-on contributions.
Bachelor's degree in computer science, Computer Engineering, or related field (or equivalent professional experience).

Preferred:

Kubernetes certification (CKA, CKAD, or equivalent).
Experience with service mesh technologies or advanced Kubernetes networking.
Background in cloud migration or infrastructure modernization projects.
Experience with cost optimization in cloud environments.
Track record of implementing automation solutions that significantly reduced operational toil.

Why This Role?

This role offers the opportunity to work with infrastructure automation and reliability engineering at scale. You will implement systems and practices that directly reduce operational burden across ServiceNow's global engineering teams. Your contributions will help establish reliable, automated infrastructure operations and provide a clear career path toward senior technical leadership. This is a role for an engineer who enjoys solving complex operational challenges, continuous learning, and working collaboratively to improve how systems operate.

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 [email protected] 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.

Staff Software Engineer - SRE & AIOps

Job description

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