Principal Software Engineer, Github
Copilot Platform
$145.6-386.4k
JavaScript
Python
C#
Java
Go
Ruby
C++
C
Rust
Senior and Expert level
Remote from US
AI-powered developer platform to build, scale, and deliver secure software
Be an early applicant
AI-powered developer platform to build, scale, and deliver secure software
1001+ employees
B2CB2BInternal toolsSaaSDevOps
Be an early applicant
$145.6-386.4k
JavaScript
Python
C#
Java
Go
Ruby
C++
C
Rust
Senior and Expert level
Remote from US
1001+ employees
B2CB2BInternal toolsSaaSDevOps
Company mission
To help every developer—regardless of experience level—learn, code, and ship software effectively.
Role
Who you are
- 11+ years' experience in Software Engineering, Computer Science, or related technical discipline with proven experience maintaining and delivering production software coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Go, Ruby, Rust, or Python,
- OR Associate’s Degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Math, Physics, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 10+ years' experience in Software Engineering, Computer Science, or related technical discipline with proven experience maintaining and delivering production software coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Go, Ruby, Rust, or Python,
- OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field AND 9+ years' experience in Software Engineering, Computer Science, or related technical discipline with proven experience maintaining and delivering production software coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Go, Ruby, Rust, or Python,
- OR Master's Degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Math, Physics, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 7+ years' experience in Software Engineering, Computer Science, or related technical discipline with proven experience maintaining and delivering production software coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Go, Ruby, Rust, or Python,
- OR Doctorate in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Math, Physics, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 5+ years' experience in Software Engineering, Computer Science, or related technical discipline with proven experience maintaining and delivering production software coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Go, Ruby, Rust, or Python,
- OR equivalent experience
- Experience contributing technical solutions to high throughput services in production environments, such as systems profiling tools and distributed systems performance tuning
Desirable
- Proven experience designing and operating high-throughput cloud-native distributed systems in production environments
- Deep understanding of performance profiling, observability, and telemetry-driven optimization, especially in Go or similar languages
- Experience integrating machine learning or generative AI capabilities into production systems
- Experience driving cross-functional projects in close partnership with product management, design, and engineering teams
- Strong communication and leadership skills, with a track record of mentoring senior engineers and influencing engineering culture
What the job involves
- GitHub is looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join its growing Engineering team
- This leadership role involves leading system architecture design, coaching engineering teams, and delivering impactful technical solutions
- The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in scalable systems and performance engineering, including tuning and optimizing high-throughput services in production environments
- They thrive in cross-functional environments and bring creative, pragmatic solutions to complex engineering challenges
- As a Principal Software Engineer on the GitHub Copilot Platform, you will collaborate with a distributed, diverse, and passionate team of engineers and product managers across GitHub and other partners
- The GitHub Copilot Platform is crucial for ensuring the quality, scale, and global expansion of Copilot features, maintaining its industry-leading status, and empowering other GitHub engineering teams with seamless integration
- You will lead through personal contributions and by coaching others, as well as guiding technical strategy, architectural decisions, and performance optimization across teams
- Our goal is to continuously enhance AI-powered capabilities within GitHub and beyond, improving and maintaining the platform that integrators depend on in their development cycles
- We operate in a culture that values developer empathy, transparency, and inclusive collaboration, where curiosity and impact drive everything we build
- Lead and influence system architecture design for complex products and solutions, ensuring they meet security, compliance, and performance requirements
- Establish and mentor best practices for testing, performance tuning, and code quality, defining success metrics and ensuring maintainability across dependencies
- Provide technical leadership during code reviews to ensure reliability, scalability, and alignment with product goals
- Partner with product managers and technical leads to define service requirements and incorporate feedback into future designs
- Act as an expert in debugging tools and methods, leading proactive and reactive development to resolve issues across teams
- Optimize deployments and runtime performance to meet business objectives, ensuring safe rollouts aligned with GitHub’s standards
- Drive improvements in development quality and team performance through tooling, automation, and knowledge sharing
- Lead product refinement through telemetry analysis, performance metrics, and experimentation frameworks to inform engineering decisions
- Develop strategies to identify and mitigate technical risks, including frameworks for risk assessment and contingency planning
- Shape the strategic vision for technology and product development, identifying opportunities for innovation and leading initiatives aligned with GitHub’s long-term goals
Our take
GitHub was founded to make a developer’s job easier with open and asynchronous communication, distributed version control, and source code management with Git. In the first year alone, 100,000 users were pushing code on the site.
GitHub has quickly become the world’s most popular platform for developers to collaborate on open-source projects from anywhere. Nearly every major company including Facebook, Google, and Apple hosts open-source projects on GitHub.
Github's work culture reflects its global community, with employees collaborating remotely from all over the world. In 2018, Microsoft acquired the company as part of its broader strategy to enhance cloud computing services. Since then, GitHub has been dedicated to evolving its platform, consistently investing in ongoing development to better serve its users.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Top investors
18% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (2 rounds)
Jul 2015
$250m
SERIES B
Jul 2012
$100m
SERIES A
Total funding: $350m
Company benefits
- Flexible time away to support balance in your work and life
- Clear diversity, inclusion, and anti-discrimination policies backed by business practices and company culture
- Five months of paid family leave to all new parents with the option to use it all at once or throughout the child’s first year
- Family forming benefits that cover fertility, infertility, adoption, and surrogacy costs and support
- Mental health benefits that offer resources and support and cover therapy and coaching sessions for you and your dependents
- Generous 401(k) matching with 50% match up to the IRS 402(g) limit (US; competitive non-US pension options internationally)
- Employee stock purchase plan that lets you purchase Microsoft stock at a discount. (Microsoft is our parent company.)
- 100% of medical, dental, and vision insurance premiums covered by GitHub for you + your dependents. (Includes gender-affirming benefits)
Company HQ
South Beach, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Thomas Dohmke
(CEO)Currently a Board Member at Spice AI. Previously a Principal Director of PM at Microsoft, Co-Founder at HockeyApp / Bit Stadium GmbH and Codenauts GmbH.
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