Software Engineer III, Cloud Foundations

GitHub; United States; Remote; USD 108,000 - 286,000; Full time

Job summary

GitHub is seeking a Software Engineer III to join the Cloud Foundations team, focusing on the infrastructure that powers GitHub’s compute platform across Azure and data centers. You will help build VM provisioning, image pipelines, and configuration management with Terraform-based automation.

You will collaborate with a distributed team, write high-quality code, and contribute to reliability, security, and scalable infrastructure practices.

Qualifications

• 4+ years experience in Software Engineering or related field with production software experience.
• Proficient in languages such as C, C++, C#, JavaScript, Go, Ruby, Rust, or Python.
• Alternative qualification paths include degrees with 2–3+ years experience.
• Experience building and supporting large, high-traffic applications at scale.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to design and implementation of reliable, secure systems across compute foundations.
• Build automation to reduce toil and improve provisioning and fleet maintenance.
• Maintain platform services across Azure and data centers, including VM workflows and image pipelines.
• Write, review, and test high-quality code with emphasis on maintainability and security.
• Collaborate with security teams to integrate platform capabilities and modernize infrastructure.
• Participate in on-call rotations and incident response, driving follow-up improvements.
• Create documentation, runbooks, and design proposals for distributed teams.

Skills

Software Engineering

Programming languages

Large-scale systems

Cloud workloads

Education

Bachelor's Degree in CS

Master's Degree in CS

Associate's Degree in CS

Tools

Terraform

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 States

Overview

GitHub is changing the way the world builds software and we want you to help lead this effort.

The Cloud Foundations team owns and operates the foundational infrastructure that powers GitHub’s internal compute platform across Azure and our global data centers. Our responsibilities span the VM platform, compute provisioning and lifecycle management, OS and container base images, fleet-wide configuration, host inventory, and infrastructure-as-code tooling. Our mission is to provide reliable, secure, and low-toil foundations that enable engineering teams to build and operate services without managing the complexity of the underlying infrastructure.

As a Software Engineer III, you’ll help build and improve the systems that create, configure, secure, maintain, and retire GitHub’s compute resources. Your work may include VM provisioning workflows, image pipelines, configuration management, safe fleet maintenance, service discovery, and Terraform-based automation. You’ll strengthen the reliability and recovery capabilities of critical infrastructure while helping modernize legacy systems and evolve our Azure platform.

You’ll collaborate with a distributed team in an environment that values asynchronous work and clear written communication. Working with partners across engineering and security, you’ll deliver well-scoped projects, improve operational visibility, reduce manual work, and help teams adopt safe, consistent infrastructure practices. You’ll also contribute to operating the services we own, using production experience to guide lasting engineering improvements.

This role offers the opportunity to solve infrastructure problems at GitHub’s scale, take ownership of meaningful platform improvements, and help shape the foundations that GitHub’s engineering teams rely on every day.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to the design and implementation of reliable, performant, and secure systems across GitHub’s compute foundations, including VM runtime, provisioning, configuration management, and infrastructure-as-code tooling.
• Build automation that reduces operational toil and makes infrastructure provisioning, configuration changes, and fleet maintenance safer and more predictable.
• Maintain and improve critical platform services across Azure and GitHub’s data centers, including VM lifecycle workflows, OS and container image pipelines, host inventory, and Terraform tooling.
• Write, review, and test high-quality code, with attention to maintainability, observability, security, and failure recovery.
• Collaborate with partner engineering and security teams to integrate platform capabilities, troubleshoot issues, and support infrastructure modernization and compliance requirements.
• Participate in the team’s on-call rotation, respond to incidents, and implement follow-up improvements that strengthen service reliability and recovery.
• Create clear documentation, runbooks, and design proposals, and communicate effectively through the asynchronous practices of a distributed engineering team.

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications:

• 4+ years experience in Software Engineering, Computer Science, or related technical discipline with proven experience maintaining and delivering production software languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, 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 3+ years experience
• OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Math, Physics, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 2+ years experience in Computer Science, or related technical discipline with proven experience coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, 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
• OR equivalent experience.

• 2+ years building and supporting large, high traffic applications at scale within platform/infrastructure domains
• 2+ years supporting and building cloud native workloads in Azure, AWS or Google Cloud

Preferred Qualifications

• 4+ years’ experience with Azure, or any other Cloud Provider
• Experience building or maintaining planetary scale engineering systems
• Experience working with a remote, distributed team
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Demonstrated expertise in working with cloud environments and Cloud Native Compute Foundation (CNCF) concepts, which is beneficial for managing and optimizing cloud-based infrastructure.

Compensation Range

The base salary range for this job is USD $107,700.00 - USD $285,900.00 /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.

This position will be open for a minimum of 3 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

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.

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!