Principal Software Engineer

Company Description

It all started in sunny San Diego, California in 2004 when a visionary engineer, Fred Luddy, saw the potential to transform how we work. Fast forward to today — ServiceNow stands as a global market leader, bringing innovative AI-enhanced technology to over 8,100 customers, including 85% of the Fortune 500®. Our intelligent cloud-based platform seamlessly connects people, systems, and processes to empower organizations to find smarter, faster, and better ways to work. But this is just the beginning of our journey. Join us as we pursue our purpose to make the world work better for everyone.

Job Description

About the Team:

The intelligent Developer Ops team builds tools used by ServiceNow’s customers for developing, testing and deploying code to their ServiceNow environments. We’re a team focused on bringing modern solutions for development to ServiceNow’s enterprise customer base.

We are looking for a seasoned Principal Backend Engineer to architect, develop, and optimize backend systems (Enterprise Platform) that power critical application lifecycle and customer-facing SDLC systems at ServiceNow. This role demands deep expertise in Java and JavaScript, strong architectural vision, and leadership in building scalable, secure, and high-performance services.
What you’ll do:

• Participate in all technical aspects of team deliverables including quality, performance, maintainability, and scalability
• Participate in design and code reviews ensuring best practices in performance, maintainability, and testability.  
• Partner with product, design, and engineering leaders to craft solutions that balance innovation, performance, and business impact
• Explore and experiment with new patterns and advocate for approaches that improve system resilience and performance at scale
• Design and implement comprehensive solutions by deeply understanding customer challenges, anticipating future needs, and aligning with product goals
• Design and develop scalable, maintainable, and reusable software components with a strong emphasis on performance and reliability. 
• Integrate automated testing into development workflows to ensure consistent quality across releases. 
• Develop comprehensive test strategies covering functional, regression, integration and performance aspects 
• Mentor and guide other engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence and innovation.
• Champion engineering best practices, including code quality, testing, and system reliability.
• Foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement by sharing best practices in engineering and quality  
• Promote a culture of engineering craftsmanship, knowledge-sharing, and thoughtful quality practices across the team. 

To be successful in this role you have:

• Proficiency with SQL and relational database technologies such as MariaDB or PostgreSQL
• Strong understanding of caching strategies and their trade-offs
• Excellent problem-solving skills and ability to lead large-scale technical initiatives
• Strong knowledge of distributed systems, event-driven architectures, and RESTful APIs
• Experience with declarative, metadata driven, frameworks for enterprise applications
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, modern DevOps practices, and automated testing frameworks
• Proficiency with mentoring both junior and senior engineers
• Strong written and verbal communication skills and an aptitude for learning new technologies
• Passion for software development, problem solving, coaching, and mentoring other software engineers
• Proven track record of leading major, cross-functional technical projects from conception to launch.
• A strong sense of ownership and a relentless customer focus, with a passion for creating exceptional user experiences.
• A growth mindset and a passion for staying on top of new technologies and industry trends.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Qualifications

• Experience in leveraging or critical 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.
• Experience In using AI Productivity tools such as Windsurf, Cursor, etc is a plus or nice to have.
• 8+ years of experience in designing & implementing complex architectures
• 10+ years of experience with Java, JavaScript, or another language
• Strong knowledge of data stru