Front End Software Engineer, Web UI

About The Company

GitHub is the world's leading platform for agentic software development, empowering millions of developers worldwide to collaborate, build, and deliver secure software solutions. With a community of over 180 million developers, including more than 90% of the Fortune 100 companies, GitHub has established itself as an essential tool in modern software engineering. The platform supports a vast ecosystem of organizations, with more than 77,000 adopting GitHub Copilot to enhance productivity and innovation. GitHub's commitment to fostering an inclusive, innovative, and collaborative environment makes it a preferred destination for software engineers and technologists aiming to make a significant impact in the tech industry.

About The Role

We are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join GitHub's Core UX organization, which owns the frontend platform behind GitHub.com. This role is pivotal in shaping the architecture, tooling, and standards that enable hundreds of engineers to ship UI components that are fast, accessible, consistent, and reliable. The ideal candidate will set the technical direction for the web UI platform, focusing on performance, accessibility, UX consistency, and system availability at scale. This is a systems-level role that requires collaboration across multiple teams, emphasizing migration strategy, cross-team alignment, and scalable architecture. The Principal Software Engineer will partner with senior engineering leaders, product managers, and designers to define and execute the platform's future, ensuring that it supports the evolving needs of millions of developers worldwide.

Qualifications

11+ years of experience in Software Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline, with proven expertise in maintaining and delivering production software in languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Go, Ruby, Rust, or Python.

OR an Associate's Degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Math, Physics, or related fields with 10+ years of relevant experience.

OR a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field with 9+ years of relevant experience.

OR a Master's Degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related fields with 7+ years of experience.

OR a Doctorate in a relevant technical discipline with 5+ years of experience.

Equivalent experience in lieu of formal education will also be considered.

• Deep knowledge of React internals, server-side rendering, and experience modernizing large frontend systems.
• Proven track record of improving web performance metrics such as Core Web Vitals, interaction latency, and bundle size through data-driven approaches.
• Experience leading cross-team frontend migrations, managing sequencing, deprecation, and incremental adoption strategies.
• Strong understanding of web platform fundamentals, including browser APIs, accessibility standards, TypeScript, and CSS.
• Experience building design systems, shared component libraries, or paved-path tooling adopted across multiple teams.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical direction for GitHub's web UI platform, focusing on performance, accessibility, UX consistency, and system availability.
• Drive large-scale cross-team initiatives and migrations, ensuring seamless progress without disrupting active product development.
• Establish and promote patterns, standards, and paved paths for frontend development to lower cognitive load and facilitate scaling across teams.
• Develop architecture and design proposals, evaluate tradeoffs, and build consensus among engineering, product, and design stakeholders.
• Mentor engineers at all levels, fostering a culture of technical excellence through code reviews, design discussions, and pairing.
• Represent frontend platform priorities to executive leadership, securing support and resources for platform initiatives.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure platform evolution aligns with organizational goals.