Senior Applied Research Scientist

Company Description

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.

Job Description

Team Overview:

Join our pioneering Core-LLM platform team, dedicated to pushing the boundaries of Generative AI. We focus on developing robust, scalable, and safe machine learning models, particularly LLMs, SLMs, Large Reasoning Models (LRMs) and SRMs that power cutting-edge ServiceNow products and features. As a Senior Manager, you will lead a talented team of machine learning engineers, shaping the future of our AI capabilities and ensuring the ethical and effective deployment of our technology.

What you get to do in this role: 

• Confronted with real-world challenges and datasets, you will need to use your AI/ML expertise and creativity to apply existing methods and develop new ones to solve these problems in a practical and scalable way. 
• Keep up with and actively contribute to the latest AI research developments, applying new insights to current projects and propose advanced new techniques, that can help leapfrog existing ones. Work with other researchers and Applied Research scientists to validate and drive these innovations, eventually resulting in vastly improved models. 
• Contribute to the research, design, and scalable implementation of Large Language Models (LLMs) as part of ServiceNow’s AI-first platform strategy. Will be responsible for maintaining clear technical documentation to support model transparency, troubleshooting, and future enhancements, while ensuring clean and collaborative code practices. 
• Will work closely with cross-functional stakeholders—including product managers, applied researchers, and engineering teams—to gather and prioritize technical requirements that align LLM capabilities with user needs and business goals. 

• Take ownership across the model development lifecycle—from experimentation and prototyping to deployment and optimization. Will be accountable for delivering high-quality, high-impact solutions through hands-on development, rigorous testing, and continuous improvement. 

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.  
• 5+ years of relevant experience with a Bachelor's degree; or 3 years with a Master's degree; or a PhD with no experience; or equivalent work experience. 
• Expertise in Python, OOP, Design Patterns. 
• Experience in Pretraining of an LLM is preferred but not mandatory 
• Experience with Instruction fine tuning and other fine-tuning techniques is a must. 
• Experience with Reinforcement learning is preferred but not mandatory. 
• Experience with various transformer architectures (auto-regressive ,sequence-to-sequence etc) and LLM Evaluation 
• Ability to read latest papers and experiment with the ideas. 

• Early contributions to research, with publications or submissions in top-tier ML/AI conferences such as ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML, ACL, EMNLP, or AAAI are a strong plus, along with a demonstrated commitment to building a solid and growing publication record 
• Ability to communicate research findings effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. Actively working to articulate the strengths and limitations of LLMs to support informed decision-making across the organization. 

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. Learn more here.

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 globaltalentss@servicenow.com 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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