Staff Software Engineer - Git Systems

About GitHub

GitHub is the world’s leading platform for agentic software development — powered by Copilot to build, scale, and deliver secure software. Over 180 million developers, including more than 90% of the Fortune 100 companies, use GitHub to collaborate, and more than 77,000 organisations have adopted GitHub Copilot.

Locations

In this role you can work from Remote, United Kingdom

Overview

GitHub is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join the Git Systems Engineering team, which runs the largest code-hosting platform in the world, part of our Platform and Infrastructure organization. Our group is responsible for the services that store and serve Git repositories, both directly to users and to other layers in the GitHub software stack. We build the various microservices, protocols, proxies, and control systems that power Git operations at GitHub and operate them at scale.

You will work on real-world, large-scale distributed systems and help design, build, and support highly available, performant, and scalable services that enable the next generation of AI-driven software development by improving Git code-hosting platform through wide-reaching, cross-team work.

Our group is highly distributed and the right candidate will thrive in an environment of asynchronous communication. We expect you to have excellent written communication skills and be able to create working relationships with coworkers in locations around the globe. 

Prior experience solving problems with large-scale, distributed systems is preferred.

(i.e. Petabytes of storage, millions of objects, low latency, high throughput with millions of QPS)

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, test, and ship high-quality technical solutions that scale across multiple GitHub services; build deep familiarity with the systems you own; and write maintainable code. 
• Document architectural designs and proposals, run targeted experiments, and validate approaches with prototypes. 
• Lead by example and mentor others to produce extensible and maintainable code used across products and integrated with downstream dependencies. 
• Provide technical leadership through code reviews for solutions and product areas to ensure quality standards are met, while designing for high availability and GitHub-scale performance. 
• Coordinate with engineering and product owners to define, prioritize, and deliver projects to meet business goals. 
• Maintain operations of live services as issues arise on a rotational, on-call basis. Implement and support others to build solutions and mitigations to complex issues impacting the performance or functionality of Live Site services. 
• Cultivate an environment where team members are empowered and demonstrate a strong sense of ownership and belonging.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications  

• 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 Associate’s Degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Math, Physics, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 8+ 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 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 Master's Degree 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 Doctorate in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Math, Physics, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 3+ 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. 

Other Qualifications: 

• Ability to meet GitHub, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings:  Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft, GitHub’s parent company, Cloud Screen upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter. 

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Experience with cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services.
• Understanding of production system monitoring, observability, and performance characteristics of highly concurrent systems, including latency, throughput, contention, backpressure, resource saturation, and failure modes. 
• Ability to think critically about both system design and software engineering concepts and blend those perspectives pragmatically based on project needs.
• Demonstrated experience with large-scale system architecture and design, particularly in cloud-based environments, with a strong understanding of distributed systems and microservices.
• Experience working closely with product management, design, and other engineering teams to drive cross-functional projects and deliver high-quality product.

GitHub values

• Customer-obsessed
• Ship to learn
• Growth mindset
• Own the outcome
• Better together
• Diverse and inclusive

Manager fundamentals

• Model
• Coach
• Care

Leadership principles

• Create clarity
• Generate energy
• Deliver success

Who We Are

GitHub is the world’s leading AI-powered developer platform with 150 million developers and counting. We’re also home to the biggest open-source community on earth (and 99% of the world’s software has open-source code in its DNA). Many of the apps and programs you use every day are built on GitHub.
Our teams are dreamers, doers, and pioneers, leading the way in AI, driving humanitarian efforts around the globe, and even sending open source to Mars (and beyond!). At GitHub, our goal is to create the space you need to do your best work. We’re remote-first and offer competitive pay, generous learning and growth opportunities, and excellent benefits to support you, wherever you are—because we know that people flourish when they can work on their own terms.
Join us, and let’s change the world, together.

Equal Employment Opportunity

GitHub is made up of people from a wide variety of backgrounds and lifestyles. We embrace diversity and invite applications from people of all walks of life. We don't discriminate against employees or applicants based on gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, race, religion, age, national origin, citizenship, disability, pregnancy status, veteran status, or any other differences. Also, if you have a disability, please let us know if there's any way we can make the interview process better for you; we're happy to accommodate!