Overview

GitHub is seeking a senior leader to serve as Head of Developer Policy. This position, which reports to the General Counsel, will lead a cross-group team of developer policy and trust & safety professionals charged with protecting developers on the GitHub platform, and advocating for developer interests in a complex global environment. The Head of Developer Policy is also responsible for leading and coordinating on developer policy issues across the Microsoft family of companies, and hence will be responsible for developing relationships and alignment with key stakeholders across GitHub and Microsoft.

GitHub is the world’s largest platform for software development and the home of the open source community of developers. GitHub is also growing rapidly, with our product innovation, user base, and developer engagement are all showing significant acceleration. Developers flock to GitHub to learn, communicate, and work together on software projects. Developers rely on GitHub to maintain a neutral, trusted, and collaborative environment with processes that are efficient, smooth, and transparent. They also rely on GitHub to educate them about the policy environment in which developers collaborate and ship software, and to advocate for change in that environment to better support software development and developers. GitHub, and the team that the Head of Developer Policy will lead, is uniquely positioned to bridge the challenges of collective action and represent the multitudes of developers in policy debates that directly affect their lives, their work, and the future of software.

Responsibilities:

  • Lead and support the GitHub Policy team in representing developer interests in regulatory and public policy debates, engaging and activating the developer community on developer policy issues, educating policy makers about open source software and GitHub, and educating developers about the regulatory environment in which they build and deploy software.
  • Lead and support a geographically distributed GitHub User Policy team in moderating user generated content on the platform, responding to government requests, and evolving our user policies and processes to grow developer, enterprise, and policy makers trust in GitHub.
  • Build strong relationships with, and better understanding of developer policy issues and positions by, key stakeholder policy and legal teams at Microsoft. Lead and coordinate with those stakeholders on critical developer policy issues, including leveraging Microsoft government affairs professionals and other Microsoft specialists as appropriate.
  • Advise and coordinate with the GitHub CEO, the GitHub Leadership Team, and Microsoft CELA leadership on key developer policy and content moderation issues.
  • Collaborate deeply with the rest of GitHub CELA (including its legal, regulatory, and social impact teams) and the company, including Communications, Engineering, and Product Management, on developer policy and content moderation issues, including championing cross-functional investments in improving our developer policy and content moderation initiatives.
  • Build a culture of strong management capabilities, individual empowerment and accountability, healthy and happy teams, inclusivity and respect, and excellent collaboration across functions.
  • Exercise active and collaborative leadership across GitHub CELA.

Minimum Qualifications:

  • 8+ years in leading and managing legal and/or policy teams, and/or advanced degree in law, public policy, and/or technology disciplines.
  • Strong executive presence and presentation.
  • Experience in successfully engaging with policy makers and external communities.
  • Excellent interpersonal, relationship building, and collaboration skills, including the ability to have impact and influence without clear authority.
  • Excellent written and verbal communications skills with the ability to succinctly, persuasively, and strategically present information and policy positions to executives, engineers and developers, and policy makers.
  • Demonstrated success in issue spotting, problem solving, and agility through change.
  • Ability to succeed in a highly collaborative, transparent, fast-paced, and distributed workplace.
  • Demonstrated program ownership and consistent delivery on commitments – great organizational skills with exceptional follow through and attention to detail.

Preferred Qualifications:

  • Significant tenure and contributions in a leadership role in a complex and highly matrixed technology company or similar organization.
  • Understanding of software development, open source software, and the developer audience

Who We Are:

GitHub is the developer company. Over 36 million people use GitHub to build amazing things together across 100 million repositories. We make it easier for developers to be developers: to work together, to solve challenging problems, 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 over half of our Hubbers work, snack, and create daily. The other half of our Hubbers work remotely in 18 countries across the globe. Here is a complete list of where we can hire!

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!