Staff Data Platform Software Engineer, ServiceNow

• 10+ years of professional backend software development experience, with a focus on scalable distributed systems, data management, identity, security, or related domains
• Distributed systems fundamentals — consistency models, partitioning/sharding, replication, consensus, failure modes at scale
• Graph database internals — traversal algorithms, query planning/optimization, indexing strategies (not just querying an existing graph API)
• Go at a systems-programming level — concurrency patterns, memory/performance tuning, and production experience building and testing backend services
• Large-scale data modeling — schema design for graphs handling high cardinality/fan-out
• Experience designing and implementing RESTful APIs in microservice architectures
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and containerization / orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Familiarity with caching mechanisms in distributed systems
• Track record of technical decisions with org-wide blast radius — not just execution within an assigned mandate
• Experience setting technical direction or standards adopted by multiple teams
• Systems design for correctness and rollback safety in high-stakes infrastructure (access/identity data qualifies)
• Fluency with AI-assisted engineering — using LLM-based tools (Claude Code, Copilot, or similar) to accelerate design exploration, code review, debugging, and documentation, while knowing when to trust generated output versus verifying it against source, tests, or runtime behavior
• A rigorous problem-solver who instinctively verifies assumptions rather than guessing — you dig into logs, code, and system behavior before proposing a fix, and you're comfortable being wrong in public if it gets the team to the right answer faster
• Someone who thrives with ambiguity: you can take a vague mandate ("make the graph queries faster," "harden this for scale") and turn it into a scoped plan with clear tradeoffs, then execute it independently — while knowing exactly when to loop others in
• A systems thinker who considers blast radius and reversibility before making changes to critical infrastructure — especially in a domain like ours, where a subtle bug in the access graph has real security consequences
• A strong communicator who can explain why a traversal algorithm is O(n²) to another engineer and why that matters for customer-facing latency to a product manager — without losing precision or condescending to either audience
• Fluent with AI as a working tool, not a crutch — you use it to move faster through exploration, boilerplate, and first drafts, but you still own the correctness of what ships, and you can tell the difference between "the model sounds confident" and "this is actually verified."
• Someone who treats AI-assisted output the same way you'd treat a junior engineer's PR — useful, often good, but reviewed with the same rigor as anything else before it touches production
• A mentor who multiplies the team's effectiveness, not just your own — you review code like you're teaching, you pair when it helps someone level up, and you measure your impact partly by how the engineers around you grow
• Someone who leaves things better than you found them: documentation, test coverage, runbooks, and team practices all improve because you touched them
• Low-ego and high-trust — you can disagree strongly in a design review and still buy the team a round after it's decided
• A pleasure to work with — even at 2am during an incident

Desirable

• We are looking for a passionate Staff Software Engineer to join Veza's Graph Data Platform team.
• You will play a key role in designing, improving, and maintaining the robust and scalable code behind the Veza Access Graph, collaborating closely with cross-functional teams to shape the future of our products and deliver exceptional identity and access management experiences to our customers.
• This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to the growth and success of a high-impact team while working on cutting-edge technologies
• Act as the technical expert for the Veza Access Graph, identifying broad challenges — technical, functional, or business — and parsing them into initiatives the org can execute against
• Solve complex problems with no established precedent in the org or the field, from architecture through implementation
• Serve as the dependable subject-matter expert (SME) for your area; define coding standards and engineering best practices for the team
• Identify opportunities to simplify systems, reduce redundancy, and drive large-scale simplification across the platform
• Deliver significant direct technical contributions while independently driving workstream-level design reviews
• Set the bar for code quality, testing, documentation, and support — and share best practices with teammates in a consumable format
• Set roadmap and prioritization for workstreams in your area; drive planning, design, and delegation of key components to ICs and stakeholders
• Identify gaps, dependencies, and unresolved problems; partner with customers and stakeholders to close them
• Proactively refine technical requirements in alignment with key stakeholders
• Operate autonomously, consistently delivering high-quality work on time
• Break complex roadmaps into clear workstreams, milestones, and timelines, driving alignment and buy-in across PMs, TPMs, EMs, TLs, ICs, and dependency teams
• Represent your team's roadmap and dependencies in company-wide initiatives
• Coach and mentor team leads and ICs; help define interview loops, identify talent gaps, and build coaching plans to close them
• Drive collaboration, conflict resolution, and stakeholder buy-in to unblock projects and ensure successful delivery
• Model ServiceNow's core values and contribute feedback to improve team culture