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Senior Staff Data Platform Engineer (Apache Iceberg - Apache Spark)

ServiceNow

HybridSanta Clara, us, 2225 Lawson Lanelead$201k–$352kPosted 8h ago

Visa & sponsorship

  • US persons only (ITAR / export control): a legal requirement, not employer policy.

Job description

  • The Data Platform group builds highly scalable, high‑performance platform capabilities for data‑in‑motion and backend storage systems. Our customers operate at massive scale, pushing the boundaries of data volume, throughput, and concurrency. We are looking for a seasoned IC5 Senior Staff Engineer with deep expertise in distributed systems, data ingestion pipelines, and Data Lake architectures to drive next‑generation platform innovation

  • As an IC5 Senior Staff Engineer, you will architect and deliver large‑scale distributed platform components, lead complex technical initiatives, and define engineering best practices. You will bring strong leadership, hands-on engineering depth, and the ability to design and operate reliable, scalable, and high‑performance data systems

  • Architect, design, and build high‑performance distributed systems and platform components

  • Build distributed systems data ingestion solutions with strong emphasis on scalability, quality, and operational excellence

  • Design software that is easy to use, extend, and customize for customer‑specific environments

  • Deliver high‑quality, clean, modular, and reusable code while enforcing engineering best practices (code reviews, unit testing, automation, design reviews)

  • Build foundational libraries, frameworks, and tools focused on modularity, extensibility, configurability, and maintainability

  • Collaborate across engineering teams to refine requirements and deliver end‑to‑end solutions

  • Provide technical leadership for projects with significant complexity and risk

  • Research, evaluate, and adopt new technologies that enhance platform capabilities

  • Troubleshoot and diagnose complex production issues across distributed systems

Benefits

  • Generous family leave

  • Matched donations

  • Annual learning stipends

  • Flexible PTO

  • Competitive retirement plan

  • Paid volunteer time- Experience leveraging or critically thinking about how to integrate AI into engineering work — whether using AI-powered coding and operational tooling, automating workflows, or reasoning about how AI changes the way software and infrastructure are built

  • 10+ years of software development experience with a Bachelor’s degree; OR 8+ years with a Master’s degree; OR 6+ years with a PhD OR equivalent work experience

  • Experience with relational databases such as Oracle, MySQL, or PostgreSQL

  • Strong fundamentals in distributed systems architecture, design patterns, and algorithms

  • Hands-on experience building and operating large‑scale distributed systems

  • Strong understanding of concurrency, networking, sockets, OS internals, and performance optimization

  • Deep programming expertise in Java, including JVM internals, memory models, and garbage collection

  • Proven experience in JVM performance tuning, profiling, and diagnosing performance bottlenecks

  • Apache Iceberg (tables, catalogs, schema evolution, metadata management)

  • Apache Spark (batch & streaming jobs, optimization, partitioning)

  • Deep knowledge of stream processing, topic design, partitioning, replication, and HA strategies

  • Experience integrating Data Lakes with analytics engines, query services, or ML platforms

  • Ability to build scalable, fault‑tolerant ingestion and transformation workflows

  • Demonstrated experience architecting and delivering full‑stack Data Lake solutions

  • Experience working within DevOps environments for operationalizing distributed platforms

  • Expertise in data formats such as Parquet, ORC, and Avro, along with compaction and governance strategies

  • Strong expertise in designing and operating data ingestion pipelines using:

  • Experience with large‑scale deployments of Kafka, or similar streaming platforms- This position will include supporting our US Regulated Markets

  • “This position requires passing a ServiceNow background screening, USFedPASS (US Federal Personnel Authorization Screening Standards). This includes a credit check, criminal/misdemeanor check and taking a drug test. Any employment is contingent upon passing the screening. Due to Federal requirements, only US citizens, US naturalized citizens or US Permanent Residents, holding a green card, will be considered