Principal Security Researcher

GitHub, Inc.; Remote; GBP 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading software development platform is seeking a Principal Security Researcher to drive impactful security research while collaborating with a global team. This remote role demands deep expertise in security risks and mitigation strategies, with responsibilities including conducting significant security studies and mentoring junior researchers. Candidates must have at least 12 years of experience in security research, with proven success in vulnerability disclosures. Join us to influence the future of secure software development.

Benefits

Competitive salary

Generous learning opportunities

Excellent benefits

Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in security research or related areas.
• Track record of security vulnerability disclosures.
• 1+ year experience working with GitHub and/or open source software.

Responsibilities

• Conduct high impact security research on emerging threats.
• Analyze security threats in open-source software.
• Lead and mentor security research teams.

Skills

Security research

Cyber security

Security analysis

Software development

Education

PhD in relevant field

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, United Kingdom

Overview

GitHub is seeking a Principal Security Researcher to join the GitHub Security Lab team and help shape the future of our Open Source Security organization. In this critical leadership position, you’ll drive the security research agenda, inspire and coach other security researchers, and influence solutions from GitHub and partners that make a real impact on the open source software we all depend on.

We’re looking for someone with deep expertise in code security and supply chain security. You have a proven track record of finding security vulnerabilities, of building security tools for developers, and you excel in highly collaborative, cross‑functional environments.

In the Security Lab, our mission is to empower open source maintainers and developers to ship secure code. As a Principal Security Researcher, you’ll work alongside a globally distributed team to perform elite security research that uncovers and mitigates emerging patterns, empower maintainers and developers with actionable knowledge and pragmatic solutions, be a thought leader for both the security and the development community.

You’ll lead by example—both through your own technical contributions and by mentoring others. You’ll guide our strategy, influence architectural decisions for GitHub’s products, and drive performance optimization in our team to increase our positive impact on the open source ecosystem. Our culture is built on developer empathy, transparency, and inclusive collaboration. Here, curiosity and a drive for impact are at the heart of everything we do.

Join us to help shape the future of software development and make a difference for millions of developers around the world.

Responsibilities

• High impact security research – Identifies, conducts, and supports others in conducting research into critical security areas, current attacks, adversary tracking. Guides others to synthesize research findings into recommendations for mitigation of security issues. Guides team(s) by sharing expertise to identify potential security issues, tools, mitigations, and processes. Prototypes tools for large‑scale security research.
• Analysis of security threats in Open Source – Analyzes and synthesizes collected information to address complex security problems and threats, including emerging threats (e.g. LLM prompt injections). Derive priorities for research and mitigations. Applies expert knowledge and diagnostic expertise to lead postmortem and root cause analyses for complex and/or large‑scale issues in open source to specify tools and systems that support incident response, and mitigate and resolve issues across open source organizations.
• Priorities – Identifies, prioritizes, and targets security issues that have the biggest impact on open source and/or on GitHub’s users, or that require significant and complex mitigation.
• Thought leadership – Write blogs, conference talks. Leads, facilitates, and participates in industry and company‑wide forums, and influences them to address the most pressing open source security issues. Position GitHub as a security expert.
• Be the customer’s voice – Solicits input from customers and partners, from open source or enterprises, to improve security.
• Internal influence – Uses their technical expertise and their understanding of the customers’ needs, from open source or enterprises, to inform and influence internal leadership forums, in order to drive meaningful security impacts in the open source ecosystem, the security of the GitHub platform, and the success of the GitHub Security Products.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• 12+ years experience in security research, cyber security, security analysis, security engineering, software development, or relevant areas
  • OR Associate’s Degree AND 11+ years experience
  • OR Bachelor’s Degree AND 10+ years experience
  • OR Master’s Degree AND 8+ years experience
  • OR Doctorate AND 6+ years experience
  • OR equivalent experience. Additional or Preferred Qualifications.

Preferred Qualifications

• 17+ years experience in security research, cyber security, security analysis, security engineering, software development, or relevant areas
  • OR Associate’s Degree AND 16+ years experience
  • OR Bachelor’s Degree AND 15+ years experience
  • OR Master’s Degree AND 13+ years experience
  • OR Doctorate AND 11+ years experience
  • OR equivalent experience.
• Track record of security vulnerability disclosures (CVEs) credited to you.
• Credited author on 1+ published article(s)/paper(s) OR Speaker/presenter at a Security‑related conference.
• 5+ years experience in relevant field (e.g., bug bounty, security research).
• 1+ year(s) experience in software development.
• 1+ year(s) experience working with GitHub and/or open source software.

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 a wide range of backgrounds. 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!