Principal Production Engineer

GitHub is the home for software development, helping millions of developers and organizations build, ship, and operate software together.

As software development becomes increasingly AI-assisted, the reliability, scalability, and operability of our platform have never been more important.

We're building a new Production Engineering organization to help raise the operational bar across GitHub.

Production Engineers are software engineers who embed with product and infrastructure teams to improve reliability, performance, scalability, and developer productivity through software, automation, and operational excellence.

In this role, you will:

• Embed with engineering teams to improve the reliability, scalability, and operability of GitHub's production systems.
• Own complex production problems end-to-end, from debugging live incidents to designing long-term engineering solutions.
• Design, build, and operate software and infrastructure that improves how GitHub runs in production.
• Partner with product and infrastructure teams to improve observability, capacity planning, performance, resiliency, and operational readiness.
• Write and review production-quality code, automate operational workflows, and eliminate repetitive manual work.
• Participate in incident response and help drive learning through incident reviews and follow-up engineering investments.
• Influence technical direction across teams by establishing engineering practices that improve operational excellence at scale.
• Mentor engineers and help build Production Engineering as a technical discipline within GitHub.

• 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, C, C++, C#, Java, 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 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.
• 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.
• Experience designing, operating, and debugging large-scale distributed systems, with a proven ability to drive improvements in high availability, automation, observability, and overall system reliability.
• Strong software engineering experience in one or more modern programming languages such as Go, Rust, C++, Java, Python, or C#.
• Experience with Linux, networking fundamentals, and systems performance.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction across teams without direct authority.

• Experience operating services at scale.
• Experience with Kubernetes, cloud infrastructure, service networking, databases, or distributed storage systems.
• Experience leading incident response and driving operational improvements across organizations.
• Experience using AI-assisted development tools to improve engineering productivity and software quality.
• Experience building engineering practices that improve reliability, operational excellence, or developer productivity across multiple teams.

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