Principal Data Platform Software Engineer (Database Operations)

• As a Principal Data Platform Software Engineer, you take part in architecting solutions for operating RaptorDB at scale. You will take part in setting technical directions for database deployment strategies, lead cross functional design sessions and establish best practices across teams
• This role combines hands-on engineering excellence with technical leadership, bridging on-premise technologies, cloud-native architecture, infrastructure automation, and operational resilience
• Participate in architecting and designing solutions for RaptorDB deployment, operations, and resilience across ServiceNow’s hybrid infrastructure (datacenters and public cloud providers)
• Collaborate across organizational boundaries to evolve backup, restore, replication, and failover systems that integrate with broader database reliability and scalability efforts across the platform
• Drive adoption of cloud-native technologies (e.g., Kubernetes, Cloud-Native PostgreSQL) and establish reference architectures that balance operational simplicity with business requirements
• Develop high-quality, clean, and maintainable code that enforces best practices in software architecture, automated testing, code reviews, and deployment pipelines
• Collaborate with Architects across teams, RaptorDB development, infrastructure automation, systems engineering, and security teams to ensure database operations are secure, performant, and resilient across all environments
• Lead performance analysis and optimization initiatives, including backup and restore times, recovery time objectives (RTO), and resource utilization across the fleet
• Respond to urgent production incidents and provide expert guidance on database operations challenges to customer-facing and internal teams
• Build and maintain institutional knowledge through documentation, runbooks, and architectural decision records that enable the team to scale

Benefits

• Generous family leave
• Matched donations
• Annual learning stipends
• Flexible PTO
• Competitive retirement plan
• Paid volunteer time

• Track record of helping with setting technical direction, making architectural decisions under uncertainty in a highly collaborative environment
• Experience in working across organizations co-architecting and co-designing holistic solutions
• Skilled in applying AI-assisted tools to enhance productivity across design, analytics, and software development while adhering to governance and best practices
• Experience designing and building distributed systems, with strong understanding of high-availability, failover, and disaster recovery architectures
• Deep expertise with databases, including operations, operational management and backup/restore strategies
• Exceptional communication skills; ability to articulate complex technical concepts to both engineering and non-technical audiences
• Experience operating databases in cloud environments
• Background in open-source database is a plus
• 12+ years of software engineering experience, with 8+ years focused on database systems, infrastructure, or cloud platforms
• Hands-on proficiency with multiple programming languages (Go, Python, or equivalent) and demonstrated mastery of software engineering best practices
• In-depth Linux knowledge
• Experience with Kubernetes and database operators
• Experience in leveraging or critical thinking about how to integrate AI into work processes, decision making, or problem solving. This includes using AI powered tools, automated workflows, analyzing AI-driven insights, or reasoning about AI’s impact on how infrastructure is built and run
• Excellent technical problem-solving skills