Principal Software Engineer, Copilot Experiences

GitHub; United States; Remote; USD 145,000 - 387,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking an experienced Principal Software Engineer to lead AI innovation and enhance Copilot experiences. This role involves driving technical direction, mentoring engineers, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to integrate AI-driven tools that millions of developers rely on. With a focus on building scalable applications and improving user experience, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of software development. If you are passionate about AI and have a proven track record in software engineering, this opportunity offers a chance to make a significant impact in a remote-first environment that values diversity and innovation.

Benefits

Competitive pay

Generous learning and growth opportunities

Excellent benefits

Remote-first work environment

Qualifications

• 11+ years in Software Engineering with a focus on coding languages including Go, Ruby, and Python.
• Experience delivering enterprise-grade services and building AI applications in production.

Responsibilities

• Guide AI technical direction for Copilot experiences, mentoring 80 engineers.
• Lead collaboration across teams to apply advanced technologies to meet business goals.

Skills

Software Engineering

AI and Machine Learning

Cross-functional Team Leadership

Coding in Go, Ruby, JavaScript, C#, Rust, Python, Java, C or C++

Cloud-native Development

Prompt Engineering

Monitoring and Observability

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field

Master's Degree in Computer Science or related field

Doctorate in Computer Science or related field

Associate’s Degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

AWS

Azure

GCP

Job description

About GitHub

As the global home for all developers, GitHub is the complete AI-powered developer platform to build, scale, and deliver secure software. Over 100 million people, including developers from 90 of the Fortune 100 companies, use GitHub to build amazing things together across 330+ million repositories. With all the collaborative features of GitHub, it has never been easier for individuals and teams to write faster, better code.

Locations

In this role you can work from Remote, United States

Overview

We’re looking for an experienced Principal Software Engineer to lead cross-functional AI innovation and deliver high-impact contributions to the capabilities and quality of Copilot experiences.

In this role, you'll be responsible for driving AI innovation, working closely with engineering, product management, design, and leadership to drive innovation. You'll play a key role in shaping the future of Copilot experiences by improving AI-driven developer tools used by millions globally, directly influencing the product's features, performance, and user experience.

This role requires a deep understanding of LLM retrieval augmented generation (RAG), prompt engineering and evaluation, development of end-to-end AI features using cutting-edge technologies, and a solid ability to lead cross-functional teams on complex technical projects. If you have a foundation in AI and machine learning, a deep skillset in shipping software at scale, and an empathetic approach to mentoring and collaborating with a diverse team then this might be the role for you.

Responsibilities

• Guide organizational AI technical direction (~80 engineers) for Copilot experiences, driving innovation through engineering mentorship.
• Leverage and integrate existing AI research approaches to solve immediate product challenges and bring long-term AI innovations into production.
• Lead cross-functional collaboration to ensure that advanced technologies are applied practically to meet business objectives.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, stakeholders, and leadership to drive informed, strategic decision-making, ensuring that the org's work contributes to the success of Copilot experiences and aligns with broader organizational goals.
• Communicate progress, risks, and successes to stakeholders, ensuring consistent progress toward goals and managing high-impact outcomes.
• May include technical leadership in scaling software and cloud architecture.
• Communicate effectively with a wide range of stakeholders including executives, cross-functional partners, and early in career engineers.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• 11+ 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, Go, Ruby, JavaScript, C#, Rust, Python, Java, C or C++
• OR Associate’s Degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Math, Physics, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 10+ 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 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 Master's Degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Math, Physics, Computer Engineering, 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 Doctorate 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 equivalent experience.
• 4+ years experience delivering highly available enterprise grade services, including monitoring, observability and diagnosing problems.
• 2+ years building and maintaining AI applications in production.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with building Ruby, Go, and JavaScript applications in production at scale.
• Experience in LLM retrieval augmented generation (RAG), prompt engineering, online and offline evaluation.
• Experience in search at scale, search index internals, and information retrieval.
• Experience in cloud-native development, including designing, building, and deploying scalable applications using microservices architecture, containers (e.g., Docker), and orchestration tools like Kubernetes. Proficiency in leveraging cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, or GCP) for optimizing application performance and scalability.
• Experience with Azure.
• A passion for fostering good engineering practices, tools, and processes and experience with and passion for mentoring engineers.
• Excellent analytical skills as well as communication skills both verbal and written. We’re a distributed team so we’re extra mindful about communication.

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.

Compensation Range

The base salary range for this job is USD $145,600.00 - USD $386,400.00 /Yr.

These pay ranges are intended to cover roles based across the United States. An individual's base pay depends on various factors including geographical location and review of experience, knowledge, skills, abilities of the applicant. At GitHub certain roles are eligible for benefits and additional rewards, including annual bonus and stock. These rewards are allocated based on individual impact in role. In addition, certain roles also have the opportunity to earn sales incentives based on revenue or utilization, depending on the terms of the plan and the employee's role.

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 100 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.

EEO Statement

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!