Principal Engineering Manager

GitHub, Inc.

4d • Remote

About The Position

GitHub is looking for a Principal Engineering Manager to lead the development of the GitHub Copilot AI inference platform. This role involves overseeing the allocation and deployment of GitHub's AI resources, managing high-throughput service infrastructure for inference workloads, and improving the experiment-to-production pipeline. This includes operating orchestration frameworks that support generative AI workloads at scale. The ideal candidate will possess a strategic vision, technical leadership in distributed systems and generative AI serving architectures, as well as the ability to mentor senior engineering leaders, build empowered high-trust teams, and foster a culture of technical excellence and experimentation.
The AI infrastructure at GitHub is crucial for the future of software development. As Principal Engineering Manager, you will lead the team responsible for this foundation, ensuring efficient, secure, and business-aligned resource deployment. You will work with a team of architects to guide the platform's evolution through deep technical leadership and organizational stewardship, collaborating with product, infrastructure, and research teams across GitHub and Microsoft to scale, optimize, and safeguard platform integrity.
This is a unique opportunity to shape the systems powering Copilot and other AI-driven experiences globally. We foster a culture that prioritizes developer empathy, transparency, and inclusive collaboration, where curiosity and impact drive our development efforts.

Requirements

• 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 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.
• 5+ years people management experience.

Nice To Haves

• Deep understanding of distributed systems performance, including autoscaling, load balancing, and traffic shaping for inference workloads.
• Proven track record of building and scaling engineering organizations in high-growth or ambiguous environments.

Responsibilities

• 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.
• Facilitate cross-team communications, identify dependencies, and resolve conflicts to ensure seamless integration and support across products, applications, and services.
• Drive employee growth and development, manage performance, and ensure the engineering team's skills remain current by staying abreast of industry developments and best practices.
• Oversee capacity planning and dynamic traffic shaping to ensure performance, reliability, and compliance.
• Guide teams in designing scalable, secure, and observable systems that meet business and technical requirements.
• Champion experimentation and telemetry-driven development, enabling rapid iteration and data-informed decisions.
• Drive engineering excellence through automation, tooling, and standardization across deployment, testing, and operations.
• Own incident response and reliability practices, ensuring live services meet SLOs and postmortems drive systemic improvements.
• Work with architects to shape GitHub’s long-term vision for AI infrastructure, identifying opportunities for innovation and leading initiatives that scale globally.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal