GitHub is seeking an experienced Principal Product Counsel to join its growing Corporate, External, and Legal Affairs (CELA) team and provide frontline end-to-end support to our product development teams. This role will support a range of GitHub’s offerings, involve counseling on a variety of subjects, and also offer the opportunity to serve as the primary attorney on strategic projects involving cutting-edge technology and complex transactions.

Our company

GitHub is the world’s largest platform for software developers and software development: Over 83 million people use GitHub to build amazing things together across more than 200 million repositories, and trust GitHub to securely host their code, their personal information, and software collaboration. We make it easier for developers to work together, to solve challenging problems, and to create the world’s most important technologies to advance human progress.

GitHub is also growing rapidly, with our product innovation, customer base, and global presence all seeing significant acceleration. Commercial and public sector customers are also increasingly turning to GitHub to tap the developer innovation on our platform and help them digitally transform how they build software.

Our team

GitHub CELA is an innovative team of professionals, located across the U.S. and around the world, who collaborate remotely, working closely together and across the business. The CELA team operates on the cutting edge of legal practice, developer policy, and social impact. Like the rest of the software world, we use GitHub itself to work more collaboratively, transparently, and efficiently. We believe strongly in working from first principles, practicing kindness and helping make each other and the team better, and being careful stewards of the unique GitHub culture we are developing together. We value diversity of thought and experience, excellence and rigor in our work, growth mindset and continuous improvement, cultivating a deep understanding of our products and services, intellectual curiosity, a passion for technology, and innovation in our practice. We require strong bias for driving results, and a commitment to prioritizing developer and customer trust in our platform.

Responsibilities:

  • Serve as primary legal advisor to various product development teams, supporting them by providing practical, action-oriented legal guidance on new products, services, and programs, from inception to launch and beyond
  • Provide and manage legal advice across a range of legal, policy, business and strategic issues related to GitHub’s products and services, including intellectual property rights, privacy and data security, novel issues regarding artificial intelligence and machine learning, and consumer protection
  • Help GitHub’s business leaders anticipate and adapt to evolving legal, regulatory, and industry trends
  • Collaborate with CELA, other GitHub teams, and, where appropriate, outside counsel and Microsoft stakeholders on all of the above, driving consensus with them when needed

Minimum qualifications:

  • J.D. or equivalent and a license to practice law in the United States
  • 7+ years of relevant legal experience
  • Experience with product counseling involving software, cloud services, intellectual property law, and privacy and data security
  • Demonstrated success in issue spotting, problem solving, and the ability to be agile through periods of rapid change
  • Experience in cross-team collaboration and driving issues to closure

Preferred qualifications:

  • Law firm experience + in-house experience
  • Familiarity with using GitHub.com and its collaboration features
  • A commitment to provide high quality client service and a strong desire to build trusted advisor relationships with key clients and executives
  • A joy and passion for legal drafting that is clear, concise, and human readable, including an ability to simply describe complex legal and technical scenarios
  • High standards of integrity, a commitment to personal excellence, strong judgment, and intellectual curiosity that takes your understanding, work product and client relationships to the next level
  • A desire and ability to perform as part of a diverse and inclusive team, and to foster a spirit of diversity, inclusion, and belonging across CELA
  • Legal authorization to work in the United States
  • Tailored cover letter and résumé


(Colorado only*) Minimum salary of $89,200 to maximum $189,300 + bonus + equity + benefits.
· Note: Disclosure as required by sb19-085 (8-5-20) of the minimum salary compensation for this role when being hired in Colorado. 

Who We Are:

GitHub is the developer company. We make it easier for developers to be developers: to work together, to solve challenging problems, and to create the world’s most important technologies. We foster a collaborative community that can come together—as individuals and in teams—to create the future of software and make a difference in the world.

Leadership Principles:

Customer Obsessed - Trust by Default - Ship to Learn - Own the Outcome - Growth Mindset - Global Product, Global Team - Anything is Possible - Practice Kindness

Why You Should Join:

At GitHub, we constantly strive to create an environment that allows our employees (Hubbers) to do the best work of their lives. We've designed one of the coolest workspaces in San Francisco (HQ), where many Hubbers work, snack, and create daily. The rest of our Hubbers work remotely around the globe. Check out an updated list of where we can hire here: https://github.com/about/careers/remote

We are also committed to keeping Hubbers healthy, motivated, focused and creative. We've designed our top-notch benefits program with these goals in mind. In a nutshell, we've built a place where we truly love working, we think you will too.

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!

Please note that benefits vary by country. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask your Talent Partner.

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