Principal Software Architect – Observability & Data Platforms

Were looking for a Principal Software Architect to design and implement next-generation AI-enabled observability and data platforms that power real-time insights and operational reliability across hybrid cloud environments.

This role reports to the Senior Director of Engineering and partners closely with Platform Product and SRE leadership to define the technical vision and implementation strategy for observability and data systems across the organization.

Youll lead the architecture and design of telemetry monitoring and data platforms that form the backbone of our engineering ecosystem enabling visibility intelligence and scalability across our services.

What you get to do in this role:

• Define and evolve the architecture and design of AI-enabled observability and data platforms across distributed systems.
• Shape the technical strategy and design principles for metrics traces logs and events pipelines.
• Drive the application of AI and agentic AI to enhance observability capabilities including intelligent alerting predictive analytics and automated insights.
• Partner with platform SRE and application teams to standardize instrumentation and telemetry frameworks.
• Establish SLAs SLOs and data contracts that connect observability to system and business outcomes.
• Lead architectural design sessions technical reviews and cross-team alignment on observability and AI integration.
• Author architecture documents design proposals and technical playbooks to guide engineering teams.
• Provide deep technical mentorship on distributed systems observability design and data architectures.
• Drive the adoption of OpenTelemetry modern observability standards and AI-assisted tooling across engineering teams.
• Oversee platform scalability cost efficiency and reliability from an architectural perspective.
• Collaborate with leadership to align platform and AI roadmaps with enterprise engineering strategy.

Platform Architecture & Strategy

• Define the architecture and roadmap for a multi-cloud multi-tenant observability platform.
• Design for scale performance and reliability with cost-aware architecture choices.
• Ensure systems are cloud-native container-aware and optimized for Kubernetes and service mesh environments.

Monitoring Instrumentation & Developer Enablement

• Define architectural standards for scalable telemetry systems for logs metrics traces and events.
• Design frameworks and best practices for instrumentation monitoring and observability adoption.
• Ensure observability validation is embedded into CI/CD and developer workflows.

Data Platform Architecture

• Design data pipelines for hot/cold telemetry paths and long-term retention.
• Define governance privacy and access control frameworks for observability data.
• Enable analytics and reporting across telemetry and operational data.

Technical Leadership

• Own architectural direction and design standards across observability and data teams.
• Champion engineering excellence automation and quality at scale.
• Mentor engineers and serve as an internal thought leader for telemetry and AI-driven platform design.

Qualifications :

To be successful in this role you have:

• 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 AIs potential impact on the function or industry.
• 15 years of related experience with a Bachelors degree; or 12 years and a Masters degree; or a PhD with 8 years experience; or equivalent experience.
• Proven experience architecting and designing observability/data platforms at scale.
• Strong software engineering foundation (e.g. Python Go or Java).
• Expertise in distributed systems and data pipeline technologies (Kafka Flink Spark etc.).
• Deep knowledge of OpenTelemetry Prometheus and modern observability tools.
• Strong grasp of cloud-native infrastructure and the Kubernetes ecosystem.
• Familiarity with CI/CD systems and developer workflow tooling.
• Experience with AI and agentic AI including how to leverage it both as a product feature (e.g. anomaly detection predictive analytics) and as a productivity enhancer (e.g. AI copilots automated documentation CI/CD validation).
• Experience balancing deep technical design with cross-functional collaboration and influence.

Nice to Have

• Experience with long-term telemetry storage (e.g. Trino S3 data lakes).
• Hands-on experience with Cribl for data routing enrichment and telemetry pipeline management.
• Contributions to open-source observability or platform tooling.
• Familiarity with AI-driven observability or predictive alerting systems.
• Background working with platform or SRE teams in high-scale environments.

GCS-23

Additional Information :

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 creed religion sex sexual orientation national origin or nationality ancestry age disability gender identity or expression marital status veteran status or any other category protected by 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 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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Remote Work :

No

Employment Type :

Full-time