[Hiring] Staff Software Engineer, Billing @GitHub, Inc.

Role Description

GitHub's Billing team builds and maintains the systems behind how millions of developers and organizations pay for GitHub. This includes payment processing, billing infrastructure, abuse detection, and compliance, the kind of work where getting it right really matters.

As part of a platform that supports everything from individual developers to Fortune 500 enterprises, you'll work on systems that:

• Process transactions at scale
• Integrate with broader commerce infrastructure
• Directly impact GitHub's revenue and trust

We're a remote-first, distributed team looking for a seasoned engineer who brings strong technical judgment and is still genuinely curious about learning new domains. You don't need to be a payments expert, but you should be excited about working on systems that:

• Handle real money
• Protect customers from fraud
• Keep GitHub's billing experience reliable and trustworthy

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve billing and payment systems that serve millions of GitHub users, driving architectural decisions that balance reliability, scale, and developer velocity.
• Lead the detection and mitigation of billing abuse, shaping the signals, tooling, and strategies that keep our platform safe.
• Work across the stack, from backend services to APIs, and occasionally touch frontend where needed.
• Create and guide others in:
  • Developing clear testing plans to assure solution quality, reliability, and performance
  • Defining success metrics
  • Integrating customer feedback for continuous improvement
• Mentor and grow engineers across the team and broader org through pairing, thoughtful feedback, leading by example, and contributing to engineering-wide practices.
• Use AI-assisted development tools like GitHub Copilot to work effectively and help the team figure out where they're most useful.
• Collaborate with and influence cross-functional teams and partner with stakeholders and lead discussions across GitHub and Microsoft on shared technical problems, including design and cross-cutting concerns.
• Participate in on-call rotations, lead incident response, and drive reliability improvements based on operational learnings.
• Own and advocate for the health and quality of the systems that the team builds, including participating in on-call for first responder rotations and live incidents.

Qualifications

• 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.
• Demonstrated experience designing and operating services on cloud platforms such as Azure, including infrastructure and deployment concerns.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience building and operating Ruby and/or Go services at scale in high-traffic production environments.
• Experience with JavaScript and frontend frameworks like React.
• Experience building or operating payments, billing, fraud detection, compliance, or similarly high-stakes transactional systems.
• Familiarity with or curiosity about AI-assisted development workflows (GitHub Copilot, LLM-based tooling).
• Track record of driving technical decisions across teams through RFCs, design docs, and async collaboration in a distributed environment.
• Experience mentoring engineers and raising the quality bar through code review, pairing, and technical leadership.

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