Sr Software Engineer, Platform Cryptography

Team

Platform Security builds foundational security infrastructure and AI-driven detection systems for enterprise-scale operations. Our mission is to make security proactive, intelligent, and seamlessly integrated into the ServiceNow platform. Cryptography within Platform Security owns the cryptographic backbone of the ServiceNow platform across multiple domains: certificate lifecycle, key management, secrets distribution, and workload identity for a SaaS platform. This is core, regulated-environment security engineering

Role Summary

As a Senior Software Engineer, Core Cryptography, you will design and build secure, high-quality cryptographic services — key management, PKI, secrets — for a large-scale multi-tenant SaaS platform. You will bring hands-on engineering depth, a security-first mindset, and the ability to apply ML/AI techniques to strengthen how the system detects misuse and anomalies, working under the technical direction of staff+ engineers on the team.

What You Get to Do in This Role

• Design, develop, and maintain high-quality, secure cryptographic services meeting FIPS compliance and regulated-environment requirements
• Build and operate services within the core crypto ecosystem — key management, certificate lifecycle, secrets distribution — with reliability and security as first-class requirements
• Apply ML/statistical techniques where they add real value — flagging anomalous key usage, abnormal secrets access, or unusual certificate request patterns
• Contribute to building inference/detection pipelines that surface cryptographic misuse or compromise indicators in near real time
• Collaborate with product owners, security architects, and engineering teams to translate security and compliance requirements into working code
• Operate services on Kubernetes in a multi-tenant SaaS environment — deployment, CI/CD, on-call, incident response
• Write secure code by default: threat-model your own designs, review others' code with the same rigor, catch logic errors and cryptographic anti-patterns
• Stay current on cryptographic advancements, including post-quantum readiness, and bring relevant ideas to the team

Basic Qualifications

• 4+ years professional software engineering experience; Java, Go, or equivalent OO language at production scale
• Advanced knowledge of data structures, algorithms, object-oriented design, design patterns, and performance/scale considerations
• Familiarity with distributed systems concepts — resource isolation, concurrency, and scaling execution across shared infrastructure
• Demonstrated capability to manage multiple projects with material technical risk across teams and processes
• Hands-on experience deploying and operating services on Kubernetes in a SaaS/multi-tenant environment
• Working knowledge of core cryptographic primitives (symmetric/asymmetric encryption, hashing, digital signatures, PKI/TLS fundamentals)
• Demonstrated security-conscious coding habits: secure coding, code review, unit testing, automation

Additional Qualifications

• Direct experience with cryptography, PKI, key management, or secrets management systems
• Some applied ML/AI exposure — anomaly detection, classification, or critically integrating AI tooling into engineering workflows — over pure research background
• Experience building distributed backend systems (microservices, SQL/NoSQL data stores)
• Exposure to regulated environments (FIPS 140-2/3, FedRAMP, or similar)

For positions in this location, we offer a base pay of $143,200 - $243,400, plus equity (when applicable), variable/incentive compensation and benefits. Sales positions generally offer a competitive On Target Earnings (OTE) incentive compensation structure. Please note that the base pay shown is a guideline, and individual total compensation will vary based on factors such as qualifications, skill level, competencies, and work location. We also offer health plans, including flexible spending accounts, a 401(k) Plan with company match, ESPP, matching donations, a flexible time away plan and family leave programs. Compensation is based on the geographic location in which the role is located and is subject to change based on work location.