Staff Software Engineer, Codespaces

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 With Codespaces, we’re building and operating instant-on, remote cloud development environments. In this model, engineers work in cloud development environments — tailored for a specific project — where the overhead of launching a task-specific workbench is effectively zero. Work on a bug, review a change, or just try something out, all booted from a clean baseline ready for your commits. Not only does this accelerate engineers day to day coding, but it is also used across GitHub.com to iterate on and validate Copilot-generated code.

We are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join this team and drive the continued evolution of Codespaces, shaping the future of cloud-based development for GitHub and its users. In this role you will play a critical role in shaping and implementing the future of the Codespaces product. You will work directly with developers and customers to help define the future of cloud development environments across GitHub.com. You will work with a strong team of developers to design and build a platform that is secure, reliable and most of all fun to develop on. Note, this Staff position is not only one where you get to design solutions, but one where you will have the opportunity to ship large features as part of the job.

Role Overview: As a software engineer at GitHub, you will enhance the collaboration experience at GitHub by working closely with a community of engineers and designers with a distributed, diverse and passionate team delivering the services that millions of developers depend on. In this role you will design, prototype, implement, ship and support highly performant and inspiring user experiences with your team. We are looking for creative problem solvers and diverse thinkers, people who care about culture as well as customers and features. We believe that how we do things is as important as what we do. Big vision, a common purpose, passion for quality, curiosity, dedication, and investment in fun and collaboration are what lead to great results. Great products reflect the teams that build them.

Responsibilities Job Responsibilities

• Design, develop, test and ship high-quality technical solutions that scale across multiple GitHub services and become intimately familiar with the systems you build and take pride in writing maintainable code.
• Provide technical leadership, mentorship, pairing opportunities, and code reviews to encourage the growth of others; support teams in producing extensible and maintainable code, ensuring integration with downstream dependencies and adherence to quality standards.
• Own and advocate for the health and quality of the systems that the team builds, including participating in on-call for first responder rotations and live incidents.
• Write architecture briefs and proposals and carry out code experiments.
• Design and implement APIs to facilitate seamless integration between software components.
• Utilize CI/CD tools to set up automated pipelines for continuous integration and delivery.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams and partner with stakeholders and lead discussions for technical solutions, including design and cost considerations.
• Create and guide others in 1) developing clear testing plans to assure solution quality, reliability, and performance; 2) defining success metrics; and 3) integrating customer feedback for continuous improvement - all while ensuring system architecture meets security and compliance standards.
• Maintain executional and operational excellence within and potentially across teams/organizations.
• Apply debugging tools and telemetry to verify assumptions, proactively resolve issues, and optimize code performance and maintainability.
• Drive and support technical roadmap that aligns with product goals, ensuring that engineering efforts are strategically prioritized and incorporating the adoption of new technologies and methodologies where applicable.
• Participate in on-call rotations with your team
• Offer and receive feedback to grow yourself and the team

Qualifications Required Qualifications:

• 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, Go, Ruby, Rust, Python, JavaScript, C, C++, C#, Java,

• OR associate’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Math, Physics, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 8+ 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, Rust, Python, JavaScript, C, C++, C#, Java,
• OR bachelor's degree in 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, Go, Ruby, Rust, Python, JavaScript, C, C++, C#, Java,
• OR master's 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, Go, Ruby, Rust, Python, JavaScript, C, C++, C#, Java,
• OR doctorate in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Math, Physics, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field AND 3+ 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, Rust, Python, JavaScript, C, C++, C#, Java,
• OR equivalent experience.

• 2+ years experience in technical leadership roles such as tech lead, team lead or equivalent.
• Demonstrated experience with large-scale system architecture and design, particularly in cloud-based environments, with a strong understanding of distributed systems and microservices.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in one or more scripting languages (e.g., Bash, Python, or a similar language), technologies and software platforms, (e.g., Ruby, React, Go, Javascript/typescript, MySQL, cosmosDB, Elasticsearch), front-end frameworks (e.g., React.js), and / or telemetry dashboard (e.g., Datadog, Sentry, Azure Data Explorer).
• Experience with Cloud Native Compute Foundation (CNCF) concepts.
• Experience working closely with product management, design, and other engineering teams to drive cross-functional projects and deliver high-quality products.

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 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!