Senior Staff Cloud Architect

ServiceNow · Kirkland, Washington, United States

  • Senior
  • Full-time
  • $190,900 – $334,100
  • Posted 2026-09-10
  • Confirmed live on 25 September 2026

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Job description

Job Description
About the Cloud Hardware Engineering Team
The Cloud Hardware Engineering Team works with some of the most innovative and advanced technologies in the business. We are a highly collaborative and inclusive team where individuals with strong technical aptitude, deep industry expertise, and a collaborative attitude have the opportunity to grow their professional careers and mentor peers as they work across the organization. We provide competitive compensation, generous benefits, and a professional, innovation-focused work atmosphere.
About the role
As a Sr Staff Cloud Architect, you will directly lead enterprise-scale cloud architecture initiatives that shape ServiceNow's infrastructure across private, sovereign, and public cloud environments. Your architectures will ensure optimal performance, security, and cost efficiency across our global cloud footprint.
This is a critical role requiring deep expertise across multiple technical domains. You will serve as a force multiplier, leveraging specialized knowledge in public cloud offerings, database performance, Linux kernel tuning, and modern CPU architectures to solve complex problems affecting our entire customer base from high-value enterprise accounts to new cloud deployments. The solutions you architect will power ServiceNow's platform including large-scale application and database deployments to specialty services like customer analytics, fleet telemetry, and AI workloads.
What you get to do in this role:

• Architect enterprise-scale solutions spanning private datacenters, sovereign cloud, and public cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP).

• Evaluate and benchmark emerging technologies, services, and architectural patterns prior to production adoption.

• Drive hardware enhancements from original concept through final implementation across all system architectures and assess impact of design decisions on performance, security, and capacity.

• Evaluate and test new products, frequently prior to general availability. You will help automate evaluations, determine issues with designs, help identify root cause issues, and drive vendors internal and external to resolve issues.

• Work closely with engineering and infrastructure teams across the organization to understand the impacts of new software platform enhancements on the private and public cloud stack.

• Lead research and development efforts to identify emerging cloud, hardware, and software technologies, architectures, and designs with hands-on opportunities to benchmark, validate, and determine viability for future system designs.

• Serve as top-tier escalation for complex issues.

• Conduct cross-domain root cause analysis for complex infrastructure issues, coordinating investigations across database, OS, networking, and hardware layers.

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 AI's potential impact on the function or industry.

• 12 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Information Systems (CIS), Management Information Systems (MIS), Computer Science (CS), Computer Engineering (CE), Electrical Engineering (EE), or related field; or 8 years and a Master's degree; or a PhD with 5 years experience; or equivalent experience.

• 10+ years evaluating, cost-modeling and implementing new datacenter technologies, including managing multi-vendor RFPs.

• 10+ years profiling and evaluating Linux and database performance.

• 7+ years hands-on with AWS, Azure, or GCP (compute, storage, networking, managed databases, cost optimization)

• 3+ years with Kubernetes and containerized infrastructure at production scale.

• Proven ability to lead complex transformation initiatives across multiple organization units.

• Thought leader and mentor with proven force-multiplier impact.

• Excellent communication and customer skills, conflict management, and interpersonal skills. Must be able to communicate at a level appropriate to the audience.

For positions in this location, we offer a base pay of $190,900 - $334,100, 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.

Additional Information
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