Software Engineer II - OS VM Runtime

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 100 million people, including developers from 90 of the Fortune 100 companies, use GitHub to build amazing things together across 330+ 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, United Kingdom
Overview:

GitHub is the leading platform for software development, serving over 100 million developers worldwide. It facilitates collaboration and innovation, enabling users to create both simple and complex projects. GitHub’s mission is to streamline software development by providing robust tools and a dynamic community that fosters collaboration and creativity.

Overview

We are looking for a Software Engineer to join our Compute Foundations team at GitHub. This critical team is responsible for developing and maintaining the robust infrastructure that powers GitHub’s wide range of services. The role specifically focuses on enhancing and securing our virtualization technologies as well as managing the foundational operating systems that underpin our infrastructure.

As a member of this team, you will collaborate with engineers engaged in the design, deployment, and maintenance of highly performant, scalable, and reliable services and infrastructure across GitHub’s data centers and cloud environments. You will contribute to essential infrastructure projects that enable internal engineering teams to build GitHub itself, including tasks such as host provisioning, configuration management, base operating system maintenance, and VM runtime management.

Our team operates globally and is highly distributed, making strong asynchronous communication skills essential for success in this role. You will be expected to develop and maintain effective working relationships with colleagues located around the world.

Responsibilities:

• Design and implement features and tooling for managing our machine virtualization platforms, ensuring efficient resource allocation and security.
• Continuously optimize and enhance GitHub’s Linux OS and container images to drive product-focused efficiency across all of GitHub’s engineering.
• Collaborate with other engineering teams to enhance the security hardening of our Linux operating system and container images.
• Troubleshoot and optimize Linux virtualization technologies such as QEMU, KVM, and Libvirt.
• Plan and coordinate version upgrades of the base Linux operating system and container images.
• Develop and maintain Functional and Performance validation tools for evaluating operating system updates and upgrades.

Qualifications:

Required Qualifications

• Experience in virtualization technologies such as QEMU, KVM, XEN, or VMWare.
• Experience with Linux operating systems and container technologies in a professional capacity
• Experience with infrastructure as code and configuration management tools such as Terraform and Puppet.
• Several years of practical experience in scripting languages like Bash or Python.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced knowledge of operating system design and its impact on virtualization.
• Advanced knowledge of Linux performance troubleshooting and tuning.
• Proven track record of improving and securing virtualized environments.
• Demonstrated ability to design and maintain virtualization platforms and associated software.
• Experience with large-scale infrastructure automation and monitoring.
• Experience with building and distributing Linux container images.
• Strong communication skills, capable of working with globally distributed teams.

GitHub Leadership Principles:

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 100 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.
EEO Statement: 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!