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Principal Systems Engineer, Database Infrastructure

GitHub· Engineering
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Remote$160.2k - $425kFull-timePosted 2mo ago

About the role

GitHub is seeking a Principal Systems Engineer to join the Database Infrastructure team to ensure reliability and scalability of the database fleet powering the platform. The role focuses on multi-year architectural strategy across self-managed and cloud-managed infrastructure, with on-call responsibilities and a remote-friendly, distributed team.

Responsibilities

  • Set the technical direction for GitHub's database platform and drive multi-year architectural strategy across our self-managed and cloud-managed infrastructure
  • Be a subject matter expert on database internals, and database administration within GitHub
  • Partner closely with engineering teams across GitHub including application, platform, infrastructure, and security teams to align database roadmap with product needs, influence design decisions early, and build shared understanding of how our systems are best used
  • Own replication topology and failover automation including design for primaries, replica tiers, promotion, cross-region replication, and zonal and regional failover, along with the tooling that makes all of it easy
  • Own the components our databases run on. Manage kernel tuning, storage configuration, and compute and disk SKU selection to meet throughput, latency, and durability targets
  • Lead capacity planning for the database fleet including instance sizing, reserved capacity strategy, and migrating to new VM and disk generations as they become available
  • Participate in an on-call rotation and respond to incidents as needed
  • Help shape how our fleet evolves onto Azure, and make near-term architectural decisions that keep that path open

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.

Skills

Required:Database internalsReplication topology and failover automationKernel tuning and storage configurationCapacity planning
Nice to have:Azure / Cloud familiarityGo / Python / Ruby / RustMySQL internals (preferred)
Last updated Aug 20, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

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