Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. GitHub is a leading AI-powered developer platform focused on agentic software development through GitHub Copilot. The Staff Software Engineer will build the context layer for Copilot Agents, including memory, search, GitHub graph, and context retrieval systems. The role involves providing technical leadership, developing scalable platform capabilities, partnering across disciplines, and improving the quality, reliability, and efficiency of AI agents.
Responsibilities
Provide technical leadership for systems that help AI agents acquire, interpret, retain, and apply relevant software-development context
Design, prototype, implement, test, ship, and operate high-quality technical solutions that scale across GitHub services and Copilot experiences
Develop platform capabilities and APIs for context retrieval, sessions, memory, agent customization, evaluation, and feedback-driven improvement
Turn ambiguous customer and product opportunities into clear technical strategies, architecture proposals, experiments, and executable roadmaps
Work at the frontier of how software gets built with agents and evolve workflows that make the whole team faster
Partner with product managers, designers, researchers, data scientists, and engineers across GitHub to connect capabilities into coherent end-to-end experiences
Establish evaluation methods, telemetry, and learning loops that measure agent quality, efficiency, reliability, and customer outcomes
Make thoughtful tradeoffs across capability, latency, cost, privacy, security, reliability, and developer experience
Own and advocate for the health and quality of the systems the team builds, including participating in first-responder on-call rotations and live incidents where applicable
Apply debugging tools, operational data, and structured experimentation to verify assumptions, identify bottlenecks, and improve system performance and maintainability
Provide mentorship, pairing opportunities, design and code reviews, and technical guidance that help engineers and teams grow
Help cultivate an inclusive environment where people are empowered, have clear ownership, and can do their best work
Drive executional and operational excellence within the team and influence engineering practices across organizational boundaries
Skills
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
Experience with information retrieval, context retrieval, knowledge graphs, semantic systems, personalization, or persistent knowledge and memory systems
Experience designing or integrating AI-agent or generative-AI features in production, including model orchestration, retrieval-augmented generation, tool use, evaluation, or feedback loops
Experience defining technical direction and influencing architecture across multiple teams or organizations
Strong product and customer judgment, with a track record of turning ambiguous problems into simple, reliable, and maintainable systems
Experience with experimentation, telemetry, offline evaluation, and data-informed product development
Experience building systems with rigorous privacy, permission, security, provenance, or enterprise-governance requirements
Proficiency in one or more systems and/or application programming languages such as Rust, Go, Python, Ruby, TypeScript
Benefits
Annual bonus
Stock
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
Excellent benefits to support you, wherever you are
Company Overview
As the global home for all developers, GitHub is the complete AI-powered developer platform to build, scale, and deliver secure software. It was founded in 2008, and is headquartered in San Francisco, California, USA, with a workforce of 501-1000 employees. Its website is
Company H1B Sponsorship
GitHub has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships, with 4 in 2026, 26 in 2025, 17 in 2024, 14 in 2023, 20 in 2022, 20 in 2021, 10 in 2020. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role.