OverviewWithin GitHub and Microsoft CoreAI, the Copilot CLI team builds GitHub's coding agent in the terminal, and the core agent loop that powers agentic experiences across GitHub and Microsoft. Our work spans the full software development lifecycle, with a focus on turning modern AI systems into reliable, production-grade developer tools.
We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer to help build a world-class coding agent CLI. This role is for engineers who care deeply about product quality, end-to-end ownership, and the details that separate promising tools from ones developers trust and adopt daily.
Our work sits at the intersection of agentic AI systems and high-performance developer tooling. We are particularly interested in candidates with strength in one or more of the following areas:
- Building, evaluating, and iterating on agentic systems, including tool design, agent loops, benchmarking, and quality optimization
- Building delightful, high-performance terminal experiences, including terminal UIs, low-level primitives, and systems that feel fast, predictable, and polished
Engineers on this team operate with high autonomy and a strong product mindset. You will own large surface areas end-to-end, partner closely with product and design, and push to continuously raise the quality bar for both the CLI and the underlying agent platform used across GitHub and Microsoft.
Responsibilities- Take ownership of critical product and platform areas of the Copilot CLI and shared agent runtime
- Set a high technical and quality bar for agentic systems and developer-facing tooling
- Design and ship performant, reliable terminal experiences that developers depend on for daily work
- Use data, benchmarks, and direct user feedback to guide iteration and investment
- Collaborate across org boundaries to enable other teams to build agentic products on top of a shared foundation
- Influence architecture, technical direction, and engineering standards beyond your immediate team
QualificationsRequired Qualifications
- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 4+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
- OR equivalent experience.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
- OR equivalent experience.
- Hands-on experience building and operating generative AI or agentic systems in production, with direct ownership over quality, reliability, and iteration
- 5+ years of experience building and shipping customer-facing developer products, with depth across platform/foundation systems and user-facing experiences
- Strong product mindset with a track record of owning ambiguous problem spaces and driving them to high-quality outcomes
- Solid engineering fundamentals, including systems design, performance, and debugging in complex production environments
- Experience designing, running, and optimizing evaluations for agentic systems, including tools, prompts, and agent loops
- Experience building terminal user interfaces (TUIs) or working with low-level terminal primitives is a strong plus
- Experience contributing to or leading open-source projects at scale is a plus
Software Engineering IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119,800.00 - $234,700.00 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $160,200.00 - $261,000.00 per year.
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay
Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800.00 - $274,800.00 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $188,000.00 - $304,200.00 per year.
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay
This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.
