Senior Design Engineer

GitHub, Inc.; Remote; CAD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading developer platform is seeking a Senior Design Engineer to shape and explore UX patterns using innovative tools and technologies. The role requires collaboration with designers, product managers, and engineers to create high-quality user experiences. Candidates should have extensive experience in product design and prototyping, with preferences for accessible and adaptable design practices. This remote position offers a chance to work on impactful projects that define the future of developer tools.

Benefits

Competitive salary

Generous learning opportunities

Excellent benefits

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in product or service design.
• Bachelor’s degree plus 5+ years or master's with 3+ years experience.
• Familiar with complex business case analysis.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate and plan with team for product development.
• Generate and iterate design solutions.
• Rapidly prototype new concepts and UX patterns.

Skills

Product design

User experience design

Prototyping

Collaboration

Problem solving

Education

Bachelor’s degree in relevant field

Master’s degree in relevant field

Tools

React

CSS

HTML

JavaScript

Job description

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, Canada

Overview

At GitHub, we are passionate about creating innovative solutions that enhance the developer experience for millions of people worldwide. As a Senior Design Engineer, you’ll work closely with designers, product managers, and engineers to shape the next generation of developer tools. Join us at this exciting time in our company’s journey, where your contributions will be essential in elevating our core experiences and driving GitHub toward a bold future!

As a Senior Design Engineer at GitHub, you’ll focus on shaping and exploring UX patterns, pushing what’s possible with an AI. You’ll work hands‑on with design primitives and open source systems, prototyping new concepts and experimenting with emerging front‑end technologies. Collaborating closely with systems designers, engineers, and product managers, you’ll help build, iterate, and refine high‑quality user experiences. Your curiosity and creativity drive you to explore new solutions, contribute to open source, and elevate design standards as you help define the future of GitHub’s products.

Design Engineers at GitHub are expert individual contributors; they're given a lot of autonomy and trust to work on our most impactful design projects. For this specific role, you will report directly to the Senior Director, Core UX Design.

Responsibilities

• Collaboration & Planning: Work with your team and partners to estimate schedules, set priorities, and support product planning for ongoing projects.
• Problem‑Solving & Synthesis: Generate and iterate solutions for moderately complex product challenges by synthesizing user needs and business insights to improve product design.
• Exploration & Prototyping: Rapidly explore and prototype interactive concepts, especially around emerging UX patterns and AI‑ready design languages, moving fast to test ideas and learn what works. Experiment with design primitives and open source systems.
• Front‑End Craft & Adaptability: Deliver front‑end experiences with a focus on quality and detail, adapting quickly to new technologies and approaches—even when all the answers aren’t clear.
• Systems & Architecture: Support evolving and scaling design systems, contribute to robust information architecture, and help advance open source initiatives.
• Design Systems Integration: Integrate and use design system components to deliver product consistency and alignment with company standards.
• Communication: Collaborate and communicate clearly with cross‑disciplinary teams throughout ideation, design, and development for inclusive and well‑understood messaging.
• Accessibility & Craft: Deliver accessible, high‑quality visual and interaction designs from concept to completion, ensuring assets, flows, and animations support GitHub’s brand and principles.
• Brand & Experience: Build and refine interactive experiences that fully reflect GitHub’s brand vision.

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years’ experience in product or service design,
• OR bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, or related field AND 5+ years’ experience in product or service design,
• OR master’s degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, or related field AND 3+ years’ experience in product or service design,
• OR doctorate in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, or related field AND 1+ year(s) experience in product or service design,
• OR equivalent experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience shipping products and/or delivering to customers as a result of an end‑to‑end design process
• Knowledge of typical data center designs/architectures and be following industry design trends
• Experience with performing complex business case analysis to justify technical decisions and present the justification to management in a high‑level review
• Engineering experience working in modern web development (e.g., React, CSS, HTML, JavaScript methodologies, etc.)
• Experience with WCAG compliance and/or implementing accessibility best practices.

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!