Principal Systems Engineer - Database Infrastructure
$160.2k - $425k/yr+ Annual bonus + Stock + Sales incentives
Expert
Bachelor's, Master's, PhD, Associate's
Remote in USA
Remote
DevOps & InfrastructureDatabase Administration
About the job
Requirements
- At least 11 years of experience in software engineering, computer science, or a related technical discipline, with proven experience maintaining and delivering production software in languages including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Go, Ruby, Rust, or Python; alternatively, an Associate's degree in a named or related field and at least 10 years of such experience, a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field and at least 9 years, a Master's degree in a named or related field and at least 7 years, a Doctorate in a named or related field and at least 5 years, or equivalent experience.
Responsibilities
- Set the technical direction for GitHub's database platform and drive multi-year architectural strategy across self-managed and cloud-managed infrastructure.
- Serve as a subject matter expert on database internals and database administration within GitHub.
- Partner with application, platform, infrastructure, and security engineering teams to align the database roadmap with product needs, influence design decisions early, and build shared understanding of effective system use.
- Own replication topology and failover automation, including design for primaries, replica tiers, promotion, cross-region replication, zonal and regional failover, and supporting tooling.
- Own the components on which databases run, including kernel tuning, storage configuration, and compute and disk SKU selection to meet throughput, latency, and durability targets.
- Lead database fleet capacity planning, including instance sizing, reserved capacity strategy, and migrations to new virtual machine and disk generations.
- Participate in an on-call rotation and respond to incidents as needed.
- Help shape the fleet's evolution onto Azure and make near-term architectural decisions that preserve that path.
Desired Qualifications
- Bring expertise in building, operating, and maintaining resilient, scalable systems for a global user community, including the ability to break complex systems into manageable components.
- Have deep expertise with MySQL internals, including InnoDB, GTID and semi-synchronous replication, replication lag and its causes, connection pooling and query routing through a proxy tier, read-after-write consistency strategies such as session pinning or GTID-aware routing, and diagnosing performance problems under production load.
- Have production experience with database sharding, including shard key selection, cross-shard query costs, and resharding strategy.
- Have strong experience writing production software in Go, Python, Ruby, or Rust, particularly systems-level software such as agents, daemons, and operational command-line tooling.
- Have experience with Microsoft Azure or equivalent experience with another major cloud provider such as AWS or Google Cloud, and familiarity with managed database offerings.
- Have experience leading large-scale database infrastructure migrations, including replication-based cutover, correctness verification, and rollback planning; migrations onto Azure are especially relevant.
About the company
GitHub runs a code hosting and collaboration platform for developers and software teams, from public open source projects to private business applications. Teams store projects in repositories, propose changes through pull requests, and review code before merging it into a shared version. GitHub Actions automates tests and deployments, while Copilot assists with writing code and Advanced Security checks for vulnerabilities and exposed credentials. The company earns revenue from paid team and enterprise subscriptions, AI coding plans, security add-ons, and usage of its development tools. Founded in 2008 and headquartered in San Francisco, GitHub is a subsidiary of Microsoft.
Company Size
5,001-10,000
Company Stage
Acquired
Total Funding
$350M
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
Founded
2008
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Enterprise relationships run deep: GitHub reports developers from 90% of Fortune 100 companies using its platform.
- Remote work supports location flexibility: GitHub describes a remote-first culture with home-office resources.
- New parents receive substantial leave: GitHub lists five months of paid family leave, with benefits varying by country.
What critics are saying
- Copilot leaves verification to users: GitHub requires reviewing generated code for accuracy and security.
- Demand outruns infrastructure: GitHub's August 2026 capacity failure disrupted multiple services for seven hours and 47 minutes.
- On-call engineers face extended response work: GitHub's August 2026 Copilot status incident lasted over ten hours.
What makes GitHub unique
- Developer distribution is unusually broad: GitHub reports more than 225 million developers on its platform.
- Maintainers get funding beside their code: GitHub Sponsors routes financial support directly through project pages.
- GitHub preserves software beyond online hosting: its Arctic vault uses film designed to last 1,000 years.
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Benefits
- A diverse and inclusive workplace - At GitHub, we think that a diverse company is a strong company, and we work hard to foster a supportive and welcoming workplace. Learn more about our commitment to diversity.
- Work happier - Build amazing things with a balance of autonomy and collaborative teamwork. Set your own work schedule and make use of a flexible PTO plan when you need to recharge.
- Lead from any location - GitHub is a remote-first company with offices located throughout the US, Europe, and Asia. Whether you live near an office or not, GitHub believes you can do your best work wherever you are. If you work remotely, you will receive a stipend to outfit your home office and receive reoccurring reimbursement refreshes.
- Put your health and family first - You'll enjoy 100% coverage of health insurance premiums across our medical, dental, and vision plan offerings, including coverage for dependents. We also offer five months of paid family leave to all new parents with the option to use it all at once or throughout the baby's first year.
- Find your zen - GitHub provides a monthly wellness stipend designed to cover anything from gym memberships, massage, meditation apps, or any other wellness related expenses.
- Invest in your future - At GitHub, you'll have a stake in the future success of our platform with equity grants. For full-time employees, we offer competitive 401k planning with a 50% company match up to the IRS 402(g) annual limit.
- Keep growing - Learn how you learn best. From books to conferences, you'll get a yearly budget for your individual learning and development goals.
- Give back to your community - We believe in sharing our time, resources, and products to contribute to positive social impact. GitHub matches charitable donations up to $15,000 per calendar year. And for each hour (up to 40 hours) of volunteering per year, you will receive $20 to donate to an organization of your choice.