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The present, past and future of GitHub
How GitHub evolved from a Rails monolith, embraced remote work, why it hires more junior devs than ever before, and how GH Copilot was built thanks to a happy accident. With GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke
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Stream the Latest Episode
Listen and watch now on YouTube, Spotify and Apple. See the episode transcript at the top of this page, and timestamps for the episode at the bottom.
Brought to You By
Statsig — The unified platform for flags, analytics, experiments, and more.
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In This Episode
GitHub recently turned 17 years old—but how did it start, how has it evolved, and what does the future look like as AI changes how developers work?
In this episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I’m joined by Thomas Dohmke, CEO of GitHub. Thomas has been a GitHub user for 16 years and an employee for 7. We talk about GitHub’s early architecture, its remote-first operating model, and how the company is navigating AI—from Copilot to agents. We also discuss why GitHub hires junior engineers, how the company handled product-market fit early on, and why being a beloved tool can make shipping harder at times.
Other topics we discuss include:
How GitHub’s architecture evolved beyond its original Rails monolith
How GitHub runs as a remote-first company—and why they rarely use email
GitHub’s rigorous approach to security
Why GitHub hires more junior engineers than ever before
How Microsoft acquired GitHub
The launch of Copilot and how it’s reshaping software development
Why GitHub sees AI agents as tools, not a replacement for engineers
And much more!
