Staff Software Engineer, Platform Cryptography

As a Staff Software Engineer in Platform Cryptography at ServiceNow, you will architect and deliver enterprise-scale security solutions that integrate cryptographic systems with machine learning, reasoning engines, and real-time inference. You join Platform Security, which builds foundational security infrastructure and AI-driven detection systems for enterprise-scale operations. In this role, you own the cryptographic backbone of the ServiceNow platform across certificate lifecycle, key management, secrets distribution, and workload identity for a SaaS platform operating in regulated environments.

What you'll do

• Design, build, and maintain high-quality, scalable, secure cryptographic services meeting FIPS compliance and regulated-environment requirements
• Architect and operate mission-critical crypto services with reliability and security as first-class design constraints, not afterthoughts
• Own services end-to-end on Kubernetes in a multi-tenant SaaS environment: deployment, scaling, on-call, and incident response
• Bring a security mindset to every design review by threat modeling features, not just the happy path
• Evaluate where AI/ML has a legitimate role in the crypto and security space, such as anomaly detection in key usage, ML-assisted certificate lifecycle risk scoring, and AI-assisted code review for cryptographic anti-patterns, and distinguish that from where it is a distraction
• Collaborate with product owners, security architects, and platform teams to translate compliance and security requirements into working cryptographic frameworks
• Mentor engineers on secure coding, cryptographic pitfalls, and design review rigor
• Stay current on cryptographic advancements, including post-quantum readiness, and bring that forward before it becomes a compliance deadline

What you bring

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Production-scale proficiency in Java, Go, or a comparable strongly-typed language
• Strong computer science fundamentals: data structures, algorithms, object-oriented design, and distributed systems tradeoffs
• Production experience running services on Kubernetes (deployments, Helm, CI/CD) in a SaaS/multi-tenant environment
• Working understanding of core cryptographic primitives: symmetric and asymmetric encryption, hashing, digital signatures, and TLS/PKI fundamentals
• Demonstrated security-first engineering habits including secure coding practices, threat modeling, and code review discipline

Nice to have

• Direct experience in cryptography, PKI, key management, or secrets management including certificate lifecycle systems, HSM/KMS integration, or crypto-agility work
• Hands-on AI/ML exposure
• Experience applying ML techniques to security or operations problems such as anomaly detection, risk scoring, or log/telemetry analysis, or critically integrating LLM tooling into engineering workflows
• Experience with regulated environments such as FIPS 140-2/3, FedRAMP, or common criteria
• Exposure to post-quantum cryptography
• A track record mentoring engineers and raising the security bar on a team, not just shipping features

What we offer

• Base pay of $166,500-$291,400, plus equity (when applicable), variable/incentive compensation, and benefits
• Health plans including flexible spending accounts
• 401(k) plan with company match
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP)
• Matching donations
• Flexible time away plan and family leave programs

About ServiceNow

ServiceNow is an AI control tower for business reinvention, serving 85% of the Fortune 500. The platform brings together any AI, any data, and any workflow to help enterprises work smarter, faster, and better.