Platform Manager Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Job Title
ServiceNow Platform Manager

Company
PACE Systems, Inc.

Employment Type
Full-Time Contract

Pay Range
$100.00 - $135.00 per Hour

Location
Remote / Hybrid / Naperville, IL / Client Site as Needed

Experience Required
Minimum 5+ years of ServiceNow experience, including 2+ years as a ServiceNow Platform Manager, Platform Owner, Lead Architect, or equivalent platform leadership role.

Job Description

Position Summary
PACE Systems is seeking an experienced ServiceNow Platform Manager to serve as the single accountable owner for the health, strategy, governance, and long-term value of the ServiceNow platform.

This role is responsible for setting the platform vision and roadmap, protecting platform integrity through strong technical governance, and ensuring ServiceNow delivers measurable business value while minimizing operational cost and technical debt.

This is a strategic and hands-on role that sits at the intersection of business demand, IT delivery, technical architecture, and vendor management. The ServiceNow Platform Manager will balance competing stakeholder requests against platform standards, upgrade readiness, long-term scalability, and business priorities while working closely with Product Managers, Product Owners, technical teams, business stakeholders, vendors, and implementation partners.

Key Responsibilities

Platform Strategy & Roadmap

• Own and maintain the multi-year ServiceNow platform strategy and roadmap.
• Align platform initiatives with business priorities, operational needs, platform maturity, and ServiceNow release cadence.
• Evaluate ServiceNow products and capabilities including ITSM, ITOM, ITAM, HRSD, CSM, SecOps, GRC, App Engine, AI, and Now Assist.
• Provide recommendations to build, buy, defer, expand, or retire platform capabilities.
• Define and enforce platform principles including:
• • Configure over customize
  • Out-of-the-box first
  • Reuse before rebuild
  • Minimize custom code
• Ensure process, data, and architecture readiness for AI and Now Assist capabilities.

Governance & Standards

• Establish and chair the ServiceNow platform governance board.
• Define policies, standards, and review processes governing platform development and changes.
• Define and enforce development, naming, scoping, architecture, security, and configuration standards.
• Maximize use of out-of-the-box functionality while minimizing unnecessary customization.
• Manage technical debt by tracking customizations, retiring unused functionality, reducing complexity, and protecting upgradeability.
• Standardize processes and data models across modules.
• Ensure alignment with:
• • ITIL
  • CSDM
  • CMDB governance
  • Enterprise architecture standards
  • Audit requirements
  • Platform best practices
• Ensure security, access control, compliance, and data quality requirements are met.

Demand & Intake Management

• Own the intake process for ServiceNow requests, enhancements, and platform initiatives.
• Prioritize and sequence work based on business value, platform capacity, technical risk, and roadmap alignment.
• Partner with business stakeholders and Product Owners to define and prioritize platform initiatives.
• Evaluate new demand against architecture standards, licensing implications, and supportability.

Release & Upgrade Management

• Own the ServiceNow upgrade lifecycle, including:
• • Upgrade planning
  • N-1 currency targets
  • Regression testing
  • Stakeholder readiness
  • Post-upgrade validation
• Coordinate with administrators, developers, architects, QA teams, and business stakeholders.
• Establish repeatable release management practices.
• Ensure update sets, scoped applications, deployments, and instance-to-instance migrations follow platform standards.

Platform Health & Operations

• Monitor platform health, performance, adoption, automation, licensing, and value realization metrics.
• Identify operational risks, platform bottlenecks, data quality issues, and underutilized capabilities.
• Drive continuous improvement across platform operations, governance, reporting, performance, and delivery practices.
• Ensure the platform remains scalable, secure, supportable, and aligned with business objectives.

Stakeholder & Vendor Management

• Facilitate collaboration between business stakeholders, IT teams, ServiceNow account teams, implementation partners, managed service providers, and professional services teams.
• Manage ServiceNow licensing, subscription entitlements, renewals, and usage optimization.
• Ensure license spend aligns with adoption, business value, and roadmap priorities.
• Manage implementation and managed service partners while enforcing platform standards and delivery expectations.

Leadership

• Develop and promote ServiceNow best practices, governance, technical standards, and delivery discipline.
• Provide guidance to administrators, developers, architects, Product Owners, Product Managers, and business stakeholders.
• Influence platform decision-making and prioritization.
• Act as a trusted advisor for ServiceNow strategy, governance, architecture, and long-term platform value.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of ServiceNow platform experience.
• 2+ years in a ServiceNow Platform Manager, Platform Owner, Lead Architect, or similar platform leadership role.
• Deep understanding of:
• • ServiceNow architecture
  • Data model
  • Scoped applications
  • Security model
  • Development standards
  • Instance strategy
• Experience with at least two ServiceNow product lines such as:
• • ITSM
  • ITOM
  • ITAM
  • HRSD
  • CSM
  • SecOps
  • GRC
  • Enterprise Architecture
  • App Engine
• Experience establishing platform governance, technical review, demand management, or architecture review processes.
• Experience leading ServiceNow upgrades and managing upgrade readiness.
• Experience managing and reducing ServiceNow technical debt.
• Strong understanding of:
• • Release management
  • Change control
  • Testing
  • Documentation
  • Deployment practices
• Proven ability to balance competing stakeholder priorities.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to work across technical teams, business stakeholders, vendors, and executive leadership.

Technical Skills

• ServiceNow Flow Designer and/or Workflow Editor.
• ServiceNow platform architecture and administration.
• ServiceNow CMDB, CI classes, relationships, reconciliation, and data quality practices.
• ServiceNow Discovery including schedules, probes, sensors, patterns, MID Servers, credentials, and troubleshooting.
• REST/SOAP integrations, Integration Hub, spokes, and integration design patterns.
• Update set management, scoped applications, application repositories, and deployment practices.
• ITIL processes and best practices.
• Ability to review technical designs and ensure scalable, maintainable solutions.

Preferred Qualifications

• ServiceNow Common Service Data Model (CSDM).
• Experience managing ServiceNow licensing, subscription entitlements, renewals, and vendor relationships.
• Experience working in regulated or enterprise environments with formal change control, audit controls, security requirements, and compliance obligations.
• Understanding of utility regulatory frameworks including NERC and FERC.
• Experience with Now Assist, AI readiness, automation strategy, or agentic operating model planning.

Preferred Certifications

• ServiceNow Certified System Administrator (CSA).
• ServiceNow Certified Implementation Specialist (CIS) certification in one or more product areas.
• ITIL Foundation certification or higher.

What Success Looks Like

• The platform is maintained within N-1 release currency.
• Platform upgrades are routine, predictable, and low risk.
• New demand is intake-driven, prioritized transparently, and delivered according to platform standards.
• Customizations are controlled, intentional, and documented.
• Technical debt is measured, visible, prioritized, and reduced over time.
• Stakeholders trust the platform roadmap and governance process.
• Platform adoption, automation, data quality, and value metrics trend upward.
• License spend aligns with actual usage and business value.
• ServiceNow operates as a scalable enterprise platform rather than a collection of disconnected custom applications.