Principal Engineering Manager

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 States

Overview

Join us in shaping the future of developer collaboration and productivity. Our team enables customers to bring their ideas to life, innovate, and collaborate throughout the entire project lifecycle. We build market-leading services that allow developers to manage and track work seamlessly alongside their code.

In this role, you will champion strategic alignment across distributed teams, overseeing the design and architecture of products that are deeply complex and often ambiguous. As a leader and multiplier, you will not only drive employee growth and performance management but also establish best practices for system reliability, extensibility, and maintainable code.

We are looking for creative problem solvers who are passionate about both technical excellence and inclusive culture. You will provide technical leadership for identifying dependencies and ensuring our solutions meet the highest standards of quality and scale. By leading by example—including the use of modern AI software development tools—you will help your team iterate quickly and transform how the world builds software.

Responsibilities

• Drive technical strategy and roadmaps in partnership with Product and Design to solve complex customer problems in the agentic era.
• Manage and develop a talented, distributed group of full-stack engineers, fostering a culture of ownership and continuous growth.
• Champion strategic alignment across teams to ensure the delivery of high-impact, planetary-scale experiences that users love.
• Oversee system architecture for deeply complex features, ensuring solutions are extensible, maintainable, and reliable.
• Lead by example in the practical adoption of modern AI software development tools to accelerate the team's iteration and learning.
• Maintain high quality standards through technical leadership, proactive code reviews, and the establishment of robust testing best practices.
• Contribute to a modern full-stack codebase (Ruby on Rails, React, TypeScript) while identifying and managing technical dependencies.
• Foster technical excellence and innovation by researching new approaches and guiding their implementation across the distributed team.
• Act as a multiplier by providing mentorship and pairing opportunities that define success for both individual and team outcomes.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• 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.
• 5+ years people management experience.

Preferred Qualifications:

• 3+ years of experience leading distributed software engineering teams
• 5+ years of hands-on experience in modern web stacks (e.g. Rails, Go, React, MySQL, GraphQL)
• You have a strong customer focus and data driven approach
• You have excellent analytical skills as well as communication skills both verbal and written. We’re a distributed team so we’re extra mindful about communication
• You are a clear and effective communicator, be it when you write code, write emails, or explain complex technical issues to non-technical co-workers
• You are passionate and self-motivated, with a demonstrated ability to work in a fast-paced environment

Who We Are:

GitHub is the developer company. We make it easier for developers to be developers: to work together, to solve challenging problems, and to create the world’s most important technologies. We foster a collaborative community that can come together—as individuals and in teams—to create the future of software and make a difference in the world.

Compensation Range

The base salary range for this job is USD $160,200.00 - USD $425,000.00 /Yr.

These pay ranges are intended to cover roles based across the United States. An individual's base pay depends on various factors including geographical location and review of experience, knowledge, skills, abilities of the applicant. At GitHub certain roles are eligible for benefits and additional rewards, including annual bonus and stock. These rewards are allocated based on individual impact in role. In addition, 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.

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.

EEO Statement

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!

Key skills/competency

• Engineering Management
• Technical Strategy
• Product Development
• Distributed Teams
• AI Software Development
• System Architecture
• Agile Methodologies
• Full-Stack Development
• Mentorship
• Quality Assurance