Staff Software Engineer - Client Apps

About GitHub

As the global home for all developers, GitHub is the complete AI-powered developer platform to build, scale, and deliver secure software. Over 150+ million developers, including more than 90% of the Fortune 100 companies, use GitHub to collaborate and experiment across 420+ million repositories. With all the collaborative features of GitHub, it has never been easier for individuals and teams to write faster, better code.

Locations

In this role you can work from Remote, Germany

Overview

GitHub is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to help shape the future of our client-facing experiences, including GitHub Desktop, GitHub CLI, and our native mobile apps for iOS and Android. As a Staff Engineer, you'll bring deep technical expertise, broad system awareness, and a passion for crafting high-quality, user-centric tools. This role is ideal for someone who thrives at the intersection of product, platform, and user experience, balancing architectural leadership with hands-on contributions across multiple platforms.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership across client platforms (desktop, CLI, mobile), aligning engineering efforts with long-term product and architectural vision.
• Lead design and implementation efforts for high-impact projects, balancing performance, maintainability, and usability.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to design and deliver polished, user-focused features that scale across operating systems and developer workflows.
• Drive engineering excellence through thoughtful code reviews, clear documentation, and scalable testing strategies.
• Foster a culture of ownership, mentorship, and continuous learning, supporting the growth of engineers across multiple teams.
• Improve build systems, deployment processes, and release pipelines for native and cross-platform apps.
• Identify and reduce technical debt in long-lived codebases, guiding teams through meaningful refactors and modernization efforts.
• Champion GitHub's values of accessibility, security, and inclusivity in client software development.
  
  

Qualifications

Required:

• Minimum 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, Go, Ruby, Rust, Python, JavaScript, C, C++, C#, Java, OR equivalent experience
• Experience of delivering high-quality software in one or more client domains (mobile, desktop, CLI).
• Experience with application packaging and distribution pipelines (e.g., App Store, Play Store, GitHub Releases).
• Experience with Swift, Kotlin, TypeScript.
  
  

Preferred:

• Understanding of telemetry, crash reporting, and performance optimization for client applications.
• Architectural design skills, with experience guiding projects from concept to delivery.
• Experience mentoring engineers and shaping inclusive, growth-oriented team cultures.
• Ability to work collaboratively across engineering, design, and product to align technical solutions with user and business needs.
  
  

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.

Equal Employment Opportunity

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!

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.