Forward Deployed Software Engineer – Applied AI FDE

It all started in sunny San Diego, California in 2004 when a visionary engineer, Fred Luddy, saw the potential to transform how we work. Fast forward to today — ServiceNow stands as a global market leader, bringing innovative AI-enhanced technology to over 8,100 customers, including 85% of the Fortune 500. Our intelligent cloud-based platform seamlessly connects people, systems, and processes to empower organizations to find smarter, faster, and better ways to work. But this is just the beginning of our journey. Join us as we pursue our purpose to make the world work better for everyone.

ServiceNow's Applied AI Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) team is where bold ideas meet transformative action. We partner with our most strategic customers to shape the future of enterprise AI. Together, we identify high-value opportunities, accelerate business outcomes, and build reusable AI-native solutions that advance the Now Platform.

Why This Role Matters

Enterprises are raising the bar. AI initiatives must deliver business value—not just promise potential. That means taking cutting-edge LLM capabilities and turning them into resilient, secure, and scalable software.

As a Forward Deployed Software Engineer (FDSE), you act as the CTO of the build—owning everything from backend services to LLM pipelines and front-end integrations. You partner with customers in the field to design, implement, and deliver solution-ready builds in agile sprints. Your software becomes the reference implementation for scalable GenAI in the enterprise. You codify patterns, shape internal tooling, and accelerate innovation—delivering systems that are battle-tested in production and scalable across industries.

Who You Are

You are a systems-minded, AI-native engineer who ships real software. You own the full stack—and are equally motivated by elegant APIs, intuitive UIs, and scalable orchestration pipelines. You think like a product-minded CTO, balancing creativity with pragmatism to deliver impact.

You embed deeply with customer teams, diagnose root problems, and architect AI-powered workflows that run at scale. You don't just debug code—you debug systems, context, and customer pain points.

You will

• Build solution-ready LLM-enabled applications that span backend logic, data orchestration, and front-end UI
• Operate in the field, working side-by-side with customers to adapt, deploy, and iterate in live environments
• Codify reusable assets—libraries, prompts, scaffolds—to accelerate future engagements
• Shape developer experience by sharing feedback with platform and product teams

What You'll Do

• Deliver end-to-end builds in agile sprints—from architecture to deployment in production
• Engineer with versatility: APIs, orchestration pipelines, vector DBs, LLM frameworks, UI components
• Operate with agility: integrate with legacy systems, navigate ambiguity, ship safely at speed
• Codify patterns: build scaffolds, SDKs, and documentation to scale success across customers
• Influence platform: inform product strategy through field-tested insights and extensible code

What You Bring

• Experience: 8+ years of software engineering, including 2+ years building systems in customer-facing or embedded roles
• System architecture: Proven ability to design and implement AI-native software in production environments
• Engineering depth: Strength in backend (Python, , Java), frontend (React, Angular), APIs (REST/GraphQL)
• Passion for JavaScript and the Web as a platform, reusability, and componentization
• Experience with data structures, algorithms, object-oriented design, design patterns, and performance/scale considerations
• Experience with any of the modern UI frameworks like Angular, React or Vue
• Analytical and design skills
• Performance & observability: Skilled in debugging distributed systems, tuning for latency, and implementing monitoring
• Platform mindset: Can contribute to shared SDKs and tools, raising engineering velocity for the whole org
• Product sensibility: Prioritize for user value, MVP iteration, and long-term scale
• DevOps fluency: Experience deploying in AWS, Azure, or GCP with CI/CD, containers, and infra-as-code
• Field readiness: Able to travel up to 30% to embed onsite and deliver where it matters

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience integrating AI into SaaS platforms like ServiceNow or Salesforce
• Track record of production deployments in secure, regulated enterprise environments
• Contributions to dev experience tooling, frameworks, or reusable AI scaffolds

Join us at the frontier of enterprise AI—where your code powers AI transformation, your systems go live in the real world, and your ideas shape how the future scales.

Work Personas

We approach our distributed world of work with flexibility and trust. Work personas (flexible, remote, or required in office) are categories that are assigned to ServiceNow employees depending on the nature of their work and their assigned work location. Learn more here. To determine eligibility for a work persona, ServiceNow may confirm the distance between your primary residence and the closest ServiceNow office using a third-party service.

Equal Opportunity Employer

ServiceNow is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin or nationality, ancestry, age, disability, gender identity or expression, marital status, veteran status, or any other category protected by law. In addition, all qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with legal requirements. 

Accommodations

We strive to create an accessible and inclusive experience for all candidates. If you require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application process, or are unable to use this online application and need an alternative method to apply, please contact [email protected] for assistance. 

Export Control Regulations

For positions requiring access to controlled technology subject to export control regulations, including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR), ServiceNow may be required to obtain export control approval from government authorities for certain individuals. All employment is contingent upon ServiceNow obtaining any export license or other approval that may be required by relevant export control authorities. 

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