Staff Software Engineer

Who you are

• The Compute Platform team is highly distributed, and you will thrive in an environment of remote work and asynchronous communication
• You should have strong written communication skills, strong software engineering fundamentals, and several years of hands-on experience building or operating Kubernetes and cloud-native platform systems in production. Azure and AKS experience are strong pluses
• 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 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, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Go, Ruby, Rust, or Python
• 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, 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 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 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, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Go, Ruby, Rust, or Python
• OR equivalent experience
• 2+ years experience with large-scale Kubernetes fleet operations, cluster lifecycle management, capacity management, or workload migration
• Experience with Azure Kubernetes Service or operating Kubernetes on Azure
• Experience with platform engineering, developer platforms, internal infrastructure products, or infrastructure-as-a-service style systems
• Experience with Kubernetes controllers, operators, CRDs, admission control, scheduling, autoscaling, service mesh, or multi-cluster networking
• Experience improving reliability through SLOs, observability, incident response, automation, and operational readiness practices
• Experience leading Staff-level technical projects with high ambiguity and broad organizational impact

What the job involves

• GitHub is changing the way the world builds software, and we want you to help lead this effort
• The Compute Platform team owns and operates the Kubernetes-based platforms that run GitHub's production workloads
• We are responsible for Hubbernetes, GitHub's internal Kubernetes platform, and for the platform engineering work needed as GitHub moves more production infrastructure to Azure Kubernetes Service
• Our work spans cluster lifecycle, fleet reliability, capacity, workload guardrails, developer experience, and the operational foundations that service teams build on every day
• As a Staff Software Engineer on Compute Platform, you will work with a distributed team to lead the technical direction of a Kubernetes platform that hundreds of internal teams depend on
• You will design and implement systems that make GitHub's compute substrate easier to scale, safer to operate, and harder to misuse, with a focus on reliability, automation, operational clarity, and reducing toil
• Design, build, and operate Kubernetes-based platform systems that support GitHub production services
• Improve reliability, scalability, and operability across GitHub's Kubernetes / Hubbernetes fleet
• Lead technical work across ambiguous, cross-team platform problems, including AKS migration, fleet management, control-plane reliability, and capacity management
• Partner with service owners, infrastructure teams, and engineering leaders to define safe migration paths, operational standards, and long-term platform direction
• Debug and resolve complex production issues across Kubernetes, cloud infrastructure, Linux, containers, networking, observability, and distributed systems
• Build automation and guardrails that improve workload quality, capacity efficiency, cluster lifecycle operations, and incident response
• Mentor engineers and raise the engineering bar through design review, code review, technical direction, and operational judgment
• Write, review, test, and maintain reliable platform software and automation. Go experience is helpful, but strong production software engineering fundamentals matter more than any single language
• Participate in on-call and incident response for the systems owned by the team, including driving follow-up work that prevents repeat issues

Benefits

• Flexible time away to support balance in your work and life
• Clear diversity, inclusion, and anti-discrimination policies backed by business practices and company culture
• 100% of medical, dental, and vision insurance premiums covered by GitHub for you + your dependents. (Includes gender-affirming benefits)
• Five months of paid family leave to all new parents with the option to use it all at once or throughout the child’s first year
• Family forming benefits that cover fertility, infertility, adoption, and surrogacy costs and support
• Mental health benefits that offer resources and support and cover therapy and coaching sessions for you and your dependents
• Generous 401(k) matching with 50% match up to the IRS 402(g) limit (US; competitive non-US pension options internationally)
• Employee stock purchase plan that lets you purchase Microsoft stock at a discount. (Microsoft is our parent company.)