Staff Software Engineer

About the role

About The Company

GitHub is the world's leading platform for agentic software development, empowering over 180 million developers worldwide. With a robust user base that includes more than 90% of the Fortune 100 companies, GitHub provides a collaborative environment for building, scaling, and delivering secure software solutions. The platform is at the forefront of integrating artificial intelligence with software development, notably through tools like GitHub Copilot, which has been adopted by over 77,000 organizations. As a pioneer in the tech industry, GitHub continuously innovates to enhance developer productivity, security, and community engagement. The company values diversity, inclusion, and a culture of learning, fostering an environment where creative problem-solving and technological excellence thrive. GitHub's mission is to make software development more accessible, efficient, and impactful, shaping the future of AI-powered development and open-source collaboration.

About The Role

We are seeking a highly skilled Staff Software Engineer to join our Copilot Agents organization. In this role, you will be instrumental in designing, developing, and operationalizing GitHub's context layer, which is a critical component of our agent platform. Your work will focus on creating systems that help AI agents acquire, interpret, retain, and utilize relevant software development context across various sources including codebases, issues, pull requests, workflows, and connected developer tools. This position offers an exciting opportunity to work at the cutting edge of AI and software engineering, influencing how intelligent agents interact with and learn from vast amounts of developer data. You will collaborate with cross-functional teams—including product managers, designers, data scientists, and engineers—to build scalable, reliable, and innovative solutions that enhance the capabilities of AI-driven developer tools. Your contributions will directly impact millions of developers by enabling smarter, more context-aware AI agents that improve productivity, decision-making, and user experience across GitHub’s platform.

Qualifications

9+ years of experience in Software Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline with proven expertise in maintaining and delivering production-grade software in languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Go, Ruby, Rust, or Python.

OR an Associate's Degree in a relevant field with 8+ years of professional experience in software development.

OR a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field with 7+ years of relevant experience.

OR a Master's Degree in a technical discipline with 5+ years of experience.

OR a Doctorate in a relevant field with 3+ years of experience.

Equivalent professional experience will also be considered.

Preferred experience in information retrieval, knowledge graphs, semantic systems, personalization, or persistent memory systems.

Experience designing or integrating AI-agent or generative-AI features in production environments, including model orchestration, retrieval-augmented generation, and feedback loops.

Strong background in defining technical strategies and influencing architecture across multiple teams or organizations.

Proficiency with experimentation, telemetry, offline evaluation, and data-driven product development.

Experience with systems requiring rigorous privacy, security, and enterprise governance standards.

Proficiency in programming languages such as Rust, Go, Python, Ruby, or TypeScript is highly desirable.

Responsibilities

Provide technical leadership for systems enabling AI agents to acquire, interpret, retain, and apply relevant software development context effectively.

Design, prototype, implement, test, deploy, and maintain scalable technical solutions that integrate seamlessly across GitHub services and Copilot experiences.

Develop platform capabilities and APIs for context retrieval, session management, memory, agent customization, and continuous evaluation.

Translate ambiguous customer and product needs into clear technical strategies, architecture proposals, experiments, and actionable roadmaps.

Innovate at the intersection of software development and AI to evolve workflows, making teams faster and more efficient.

Collaborate with cross-functional teams—including product managers, designers, researchers, and data scientists—to deliver coherent, end-to-end user experiences.

Establish evaluation metrics, telemetry, and feedback loops to measure agent quality, efficiency, reliability, and customer satisfaction.

Balance tradeoffs related to capability, latency, cost, privacy, security, and developer experience to optimize system performance.

Own the health, reliability, and quality of the systems developed, including participating in on-call rotations and incident response.

Utilize debugging tools, operational data, and structured experimentation to verify assumptions, identify bottlenecks, and improve system performance.

Mentor team members through code reviews, pairing, and technical guidance to foster growth and knowledge sharing.

Cultivate an inclusive environment that empowers team members, clarifies ownership, and promotes high-quality work.

Drive operational excellence and influence best practices across engineering teams and organizational boundaries.

Benefits

Competitive salary within the range of USD $140,400 to USD $372,300 annually.

Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance plans.

Generous paid time off and flexible work arrangements, including remote work options.

Opportunities for professional development, training, and continuous learning.

Equity and stock options based on role and performance.

Retirement plans and financial wellness programs.

Inclusive and diverse work environment that values growth, innovation, and collaboration.

Equal Opportunity

GitHub an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, and we are dedicated to providing a workplace free from discrimination and harassment. Our hiring decisions are based on merit, skills, and qualifications, ensuring a fair and equitable process for all candidates.