About GitHub

GitHub is the world’s leading platform for agentic software development — powered by Copilot to build, scale, and deliver secure software. Over 180 million developers, including more than 90% of the Fortune 100 companies, use GitHub to collaborate, and more than 77,000 organisations have adopted GitHub Copilot.

Locations

In this role you can work from Remote, United States

Overview

GitHub is seeking a Staff Security Researcher to join the GitHub Security Lab team. We’re looking for someone with deep expertise in code security and an easily verifiable track record of finding critical security vulnerabilities. We’re looking for someone who also has experience of building security tools for developers and has written blog posts and/or presented at conferences about their work.

In this role, you will find and report vulnerabilities in open source projects. You will help the maintainers to resolve the issues, for example by suggesting fixes and by helping them to coordinate the disclosure. You will also work with open source maintainers in other ways, such as helping to run workshops for the GitHub Secure Open Source Fund. You will create and publish tools that will help to make open source more secure. You should have an interest in using AI and agentic systems for security research, as that is an area that our team is increasingly focusing on.

In the Security Lab, our mission is to empower open source maintainers and developers to ship secure code. As a Staff Security Researcher, you’ll work alongside a globally distributed team to perform elite security research that uncovers and mitigates emerging patterns, empower maintainers and developers with actionable knowledge and pragmatic solutions, and be a thought leader for both the security and the development community.

You’ll lead by example—both through your own technical contributions and by mentoring others. You’ll guide our strategy, influence architectural decisions for GitHub’s products, and drive performance optimization in our team to increase our positive impact on the open source ecosystem. Our culture is built on developer empathy, transparency, and inclusive collaboration. Here, curiosity and a drive for impact are at the heart of everything we do.

Join us to help shape the future of software development and make a difference for millions of developers around the world.

Responsibilities

• High impact security research - Identifies, conducts, and supports others in conducting research into critical security areas, current attacks, adversary tracking, and academic literature.
• Build tools that help to secure open source - Works with others to synthesize research findings into recommendations for mitigation of security issues.
• Priorities - Identifies, prioritizes, and targets security issues that have the biggest impact on open source and/or on GitHub’s users, or that require significant and complex mitigation.
• Industry leadership - Helps others by sharing expertise to identify potential security issues, tools, mitigations, and processes (e.g., architecture, failure modes, attack chain, threat modeling, vulnerabilities); positions GitHub as a security leader.
• Be the customer’s voice - Solicits input from customers and partners to improve security issues.
• Internal influence - Helps to make connections and assists in developing agreements among groups to clarify priorities, dependencies, and provides coordination across groups.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• You have been personally credited with finding one or more high/critical severity CVEs in products or projects.
• You have published one or more blog posts on security topics
  • OR you have presented at a security conference.
• 10+ years experience in security research, cyber security, security analysis, security engineering, software development, or relevant areas
  • OR Associate's Degree AND 9+ years experience in security research, cyber security, security analysis, security engineering, software development, or relevant area
  • OR Bachelor's Degree AND 8+ years experience in security research, cyber security, security analysis, security engineering, software development, or relevant area
  • OR Master's Degree AND 6+ years experience in security research, cyber security, security analysis, security engineering, software development, or relevant area
  • OR Doctorate AND 4+ years experience in cyber security, security analysis, security engineering, software development, or relevant area
  • OR equivalent experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Easily verifiable track record of finding high impact vulnerabilities in open source projects.
• You have given (main-stage, non-sponsored) presentations at top security conferences.
• Experience using AI to find vulnerabilities.
• Experience in the emerging area of AI vulnerabilities, such as prompt injection attacks.
• 14+ years experience in security research, cyber security, security analysis, security engineering, software development, or relevant areas
  • OR Associate's Degree AND 13+ years experience in security research, cyber security, security analysis, security engineering, software development, or relevant area
  • OR Bachelor's Degree AND 12+ years experience in security research, cyber security, security analysis, security engineering, software development, or relevant area
  • OR Master's Degree AND 10+ years experience in security research, cyber security, security analysis, security engineering, software development, or relevant area
  • OR Doctorate AND 8+ years experience in cyber security, security analysis, security engineering, software development, or relevant area
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 1+ year(s) experience working with GitHub and/or open source software.

Compensation Range

The base salary range for this job is USD $140,400.00 - USD $372,300.00 /Yr.

These pay ranges are intended to cover roles based across the United States. An individual's base pay depends on various factors including geographical location and review of experience, knowledge, skills, abilities of the applicant. At GitHub certain roles are eligible for benefits and additional rewards, including annual bonus and stock. These rewards are allocated based on individual impact in role. In addition, certain roles also have the opportunity to earn sales incentives based on revenue or utilization, depending on the terms of the plan and the employee's role.

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 150 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!