Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. GitHub is the world’s leading AI-powered developer platform. The Principal Software Engineer will define and build foundational systems for GitHub’s Enterprise AI Platform, including control-plane architecture, policy engines, governance frameworks, and agentic workflow infrastructure. The role will drive consistency across clients, solve large-scale distributed systems challenges, influence AI platform strategy, and mentor senior engineers.
Responsibilities
- Define Enterprise AI Control Plane Architecture: Drive the technical direction for a unified AI control plane spanning models, agents, tools, MCP, permissions, spend, plugins, and client settings with a vision of policy authored once, enforced consistently everywhere
- Build Foundational Platform Primitives: Architect scalable policy engines, governance SDKs, client-side enforcement frameworks, and extensible schemas for agentic workflows
- Drive Cross-Client Consistency: Partner across Copilot CLI, IDE, agent, and platform teams to standardize policy enforcement through reusable APIs, contracts, and SDK patterns
- Solve Hard Distributed Systems Problems at Scale: Design reliable, scalable, secure, and resilient systems for policy evaluation, spend enforcement, permissions, auditability, and observability supporting millions of developers
- Influence GitHub’s AI Platform Strategy: Partner with engineering and product leaders to shape the long-term enterprise AI roadmap, technical direction and cross-organizational alignment
- Raise the Engineering Bar: Mentor senior engineers and elevate architectural rigor, systems thinking, and technical execution across teams
Skills
- 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 PhD Degree 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
- Deep experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems or platform infrastructure
- Strong expertise designing scalable systems across APIs, identity, policy engines, security, reliability, and infrastructure platforms
- Proven experience building platform infrastructure, developer platforms, AI systems, or large-scale technical platforms
- Demonstrated success driving architecture, platform adoption, and alignment across multiple teams
- Strong track record of shaping technical direction and delivering outcomes across organizational boundaries
- Comfortable operating in ambiguity and fast-moving environments, creating clarity, and balancing long-term platform investments with pragmatic execution
- Background in AI/LLM systems, agentic platforms, developer tooling, governance systems, enterprise software, or cloud-native systems (Azure, Kubernetes, AKS) is a plus
Benefits
- Annual bonus
- Stock
- 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.
- Remote-first work arrangement
- Generous learning and growth opportunities
Company Overview
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