Director, Reliability Engineering

Job Description

About the Role 

ServiceNow is seeking a Director of SRE Reliability Engineering to lead a strategic, enterprise-scale evolution of reliability engineering. Embedded within the Site Reliability & Database Engineering organization, this leader will drive technical excellence and operational performance to ensure ServiceNow’s cloud platform maintains industry-leading reliability and performance. 

This role is accountable for advancing SRE maturity, accelerating adoption of DevOps and automation-first practices, and preparing global teams for the platforms, operating models, and cultural shifts required to sustain ServiceNow’s cloud reliability at scale. 

Key Responsibilities  

Transformation Leadership & Change Strategy 

• Define and execute structured change strategies for major SRE initiatives, platform migrations, and operating model shifts, including stakeholder engagement, impact assessments, communication plans, and adoption risk management. 
• Responsible for all incidents and escalations as it pertains to the SRE teams and the associated process and workflows with particular focus on maintaining the performance and availability of the supported environments. Participate in the continued development and execution of SRE management processes including Incident, Problem, Configuration, and Change management. 
• Serve as a senior change leader across Engineering, Product, People Operations, Finance, and executive stakeholders to align priorities, remove technical blockers, and sustain reliable delivery. 
• Drive organizational readiness ahead of major technology and process deployments by partnering with enablement, training, and communications teams to accelerate adoption. 
• Establish reliability metrics, SLO targets, performance baselines and governance mechanisms to track progress, surface operational risks, and communicate outcomes to senior leadership. 
• Champion a culture of continuous improvement, learning, and psychological safety by embedding feedback loops and retrospectives into standard operating practices. 

Cross-Functional Engagement & Stakeholder Management 

• Facilitate executive steering forums and cross-functional working groups, producing clear communications that translate reliability initiatives into business outcomes. 
• Build trust and alignment across SRE teams by bridging cultural, geographic, and operational differences with clarity, empathy, and structure. 
• Partner with People Operations on workforce planning, change impact assessments, and role evolution strategies as the organization modernizes its delivery model. 
• Analyze current procedures and processes and drive continuous improvements efforts to ensure the SRE provide a quality service across all functional areas.  
• Setting up and continuous monitoring of KPI’s and metrics pertaining to individual and team performance. 

Team Leadership & Organizational Development 

• Lead and develop high-performing teams, with accountability for team health, capability growth, career development, and performance outcomes. 
• Establish and evolve career frameworks, learning pathways, and development programs that reflect both technical mastery and change leadership competencies. 
• Lead talent acquisition and onboarding strategies that build resilient, change-ready, and growth-oriented SRE teams. 
• Drive a DevOps and automation-first mindset across teams, reducing reliance on manual and repetitive processes through structured transformation initiatives. 
• Ensure rigorous change governance, overseeing how changes are scheduled, communicated, executed, and measured, with a strong focus on risk reduction in regulated environments. 
• Lead process redesign efforts that improve consistency, predictability, and quality of service delivery across all SRDE functional areas. 
• Establish documentation and training standards that equip internal partners and downstream teams to operate effectively through periods of change. 

To Be Successful in This Role You Have 

• Proven track record leading operational excellence and reliability inititaves in a technical, engineering, or cloud operations environment. 
• Strong cross-functional leadership experience, with the ability to influence without authority across Engineering, Product, People, Finance, and executive stakeholders. 
• Deep familiarity with structured change management methodologies and the ability to adapt those frameworks to fast-moving engineering cultures. 
• Demonstrated ability to apply AI-enabled automation, workflow redesign, and operational insights to improve decision-making, reduce toil, and scale reliability practices. 
• Hands-on background in SRE and DevOps environments, sufficient to credibly lead change programs with engineering teams and assess technical impact. 
• Strong understanding of cloud operations models (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS) and the ServiceNow platform or comparable enterprise platforms. 
• Comprehensive knowledge of ITIL principles (v3 or v4) and how process transformation intersects with service management maturity. 
• Experience operating across global, follow-the-sun models, with cultural intelligence, geographic awareness, and experience managing distributed teams. 
• Exceptional operational communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to translate complex technical initiatives into compelling business narratives and actionable operating plans. 
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities; you use data and metrics to drive change and demonstrate outcomes. 
• Senior leadership experience in SRE, DevOps, Cloud Engineering, or Reliability Engineering, ideally within regulated or enterprise-scale environments. 

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. 

Why This Role? 

This role offers the opportunity to shape the next phase of ServiceNow’s reliability engineering strategy. The successful leader will help build the operating model, automation foundation, and engineering culture required to support high-velocity innovation while preserving the trust, performance, and resilience customers expect from ServiceNow’s global cloud platform. 

Education: Bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related field. 

Communication: Executive-level communication skills with the ability to translate complex technical topics into clear business implications, decisions, and priorities. 

Leadership Style: Empathetic, collaborative, and systems-oriented leader who enables teams, builds trust, and guides organizations from hero-based operations toward scalable reliability practices. 

Talent Development: Demonstrated success building, leading, and developing globally distributed engineering teams in fast-paced, high-growth environments. 

SRE Mindset: Proven commitment to eliminating recurring problems through durable engineering solutions, automation, and systemic reliability improvements. 

Architecture Expertise: Proven experience with cloud-native architectures, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Kubernetes, and microservices at scale. 

Generative and Agentic AI: Experience developing agentic AI frameworks to eliminate toil by automating the detection and remediation of transient service disruptions. 

SaaS: Experience delivering SaaS products with high performance, scalability, security, and availability. 

Engineering Background: 12+ years in software engineering, with at least 5–7 years in a senior leadership role overseeing large-scale distributed systems using public cloud technologies from Azure, Amazon Web Services, or Google Cloud Platform. 

For positions in this location, we offer a base pay of $221,200 - $387,100, 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

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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