Staff Design Engineer

GitHub is the world’s leading platform for agentic software development, and they are seeking a Staff Design Engineer to shape the future of their product experience. This role involves leading design engineering efforts, mentoring team members, and collaborating with cross-functional leaders to deliver high-impact initiatives.

Responsibilities:

• Partner with product and design leaders to set product strategy and roadmap priorities
• Anticipate and influence needs across teams by identifying opportunities where design engineering can elevate the product and developer experience
• Own high-impact initiatives from concept through production delivery
• Ship production-ready code that reflects strong design thinking, solid engineering, and attention to user needs
• Lead technical design discussions, make architectural decisions, and guide cross-team implementation efforts
• Advance GitHub’s design system by setting standards, creating reusable components, and driving consistency across products
• Champion performance, accessibility (WCAG), and maintainability in UI engineering
• Ensure design engineering work scales with GitHub’s growing suite of products
• Mentor design engineers and cross-disciplinary partners on technical craft, execution practices, and user-centered thinking
• Establish best practices for collaboration, code quality, review feedback, and shared ownership
• Advocate clearly and effectively for design engineering priorities at the executive level
• Engage with teams across design, product, platform engineering, and research to align on goals and solutions
• Shape cross-team processes that improve planning, predictability, and delivery outcomes
• Represent design engineering in architectural and strategic discussions

Requirements:

• 10+ years experience in front-end engineering or development
• OR Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Design, Industrial Design, Graphic Design, Art, Computer Science, Human Factors Engineering, Human Computer Interaction, Information Architecture, or related field AND 8+ years experience in front-end engineering or development
• OR Master's Degree in Industrial Design, Industrial Design, Graphic Design, Art, Computer Science, Human Factors Engineering, Human Computer Interaction, Information Architecture, or related field AND 6+ years experience in front-end engineering or development
• OR Doctorate in Industrial Design, Industrial Design, Graphic Design, Art, Computer Science, Human Factors Engineering, Human Computer Interaction, Information Architecture, or related field AND 4+ years experience in front-end engineering or development
• OR equivalent experience
• Experience shipping production-ready experiences
• Hands-on experience with modern front-end technologies (e.g., React, CSS, HTML, JavaScript/TypeScript) and design systems
• Experience in design engineering, front-end engineering, product design, or a related technical discipline
• Experience building AI and agentic experiences
• Experience influencing technical and design choices across teams
• Experience leading design systems initiatives or platform-level UI engineering
• Background in mentoring and developing engineering and design talent
• Experience advancing accessibility and performance best practices in shipped products
• Excellent communication skills with both technical and non-technical stakeholders