Senior Software Engineer - Platform Access Control - Security

• Full-time
• Employee Type:
  Regular
• Region: AMS
  - North America and Canada
• Work Persona:
  Flexible

It all started when engineer Fred Luddy wrote code that automated a tedious task for his coworker, Phyllis. She cried tears of joy. That moment inspired Fred to build a company that could do that for everyone - freeing people from busywork so they could focus on meaningful work. Today, Service Now is the AI control tower for business reinvention. Our Service Now AI platform brings together any AI, any data, and any workflow - helping 85% of the Fortune 500® work smarter, faster, and better.

We're building an AI-native culture where technology and talent are unstoppable together. And we're just getting started.

Join us to put AI to work for people.

The Platform Access Controls team is within the Platform Security Core Organization and owns Service Now's core authorization frameworks, including ACLs, Security Policies, Security Attributes, and Security Filters. We are responsible for validating identity and access for every transaction across the platform, helping ensure a secure-by-default experience. Our team consists of passionate, self-directed engineers who enjoy solving complex security challenges and building scalable security controls.

We foster a highly collaborative culture across distributed teams, empowering individuals with the support, autonomy, and opportunities needed to grow and succeed.

As a Senior Staff Software Engineer, you'll be a key technical leader in the Platform Access Controls group. You'll set the architectural direction for the access control layer as it expands into securing AI Agent access across the product stack and raise the bar for engineering craftmanship across the organization.

• Set the technical vision and architecture strategy for the authorization platform, balancing long-term scalability and delivery objectives while maintaining a secure-by-default posture.
• Work on core Authorization frameworks that touch every part of the product, keeping it high-quality, reliable, secure and fast.
• Own features from design through delivery, turning business requirements into well-architected, cross-team solutions.
• Lead design and code reviews, championing access control best practices, performance, maintainability, and testability across multiple teams
• Implement software that is simple touse to allow customers, applications toextend and customize the functionality to meet their specific needs.
• Define comprehensive test strategies covering functional, regression, integration and performance testing
• Diagnose, resolve, root cause and mitigation plans for the hardest production issues across the security stack
• Mentor engineers at every level and raise the technical bar across the organization.

• Having aptitude for learning new technologies quickly
• Domain experience in authorization technologies such as RBAC, ABAC, policy engines or adjacencies applicable to this space
• Demonstrated success completing complex, cross-team projects, on time and with quality
• Experience with troubleshooting difficult production issues e.g., memory leaks, concurrency issues, caching issues, network problems, intermittent failures etc. across the stack
• Track recordof technical leadership - influencing architecture and engineering decisions across multiple teams without relying on direct authority
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including experience authoring design docs/RFCs and presenting technical strategy to senior engineering leadership

• 12+ years of software development experience with a Bachelor's degree; OR 8+ years witha Master's degree; OR 5+ years with a PhD; OR equivalent work experience.
• Strong knowledge of data structures, algorithms, object-oriented design, design patterns, and performance optimization at scale.
• Expert level understanding of best practices for object-oriented and modularized software, with emphasis on Javaand Golang.
• Experience with automated testing frameworks (e.g., JUnit, Selenium, TestNG) and integrating tests into CI/CD pipelines.
• Deep understanding of software quality principles including reliability, observability, and production readiness
• 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…