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The same principles built into our products are reflected in how our team works: we embrace AI as a core productivity multiplier, with all team members expected to incorporate AI into their daily workflows to drive efficiency, innovation, and impact. GitLab is where careers accelerate, innovation flourishes, and every voice is valued. Our high-performance culture is driven by our values and continuous knowledge exchange, enabling our team members to reach their full potential while collaborating with industry leaders to solve complex problems. Co-create the future with us as we build technology that transforms how the world develops software.
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An overview of this role
As a Staff Backend Engineer on the GitLab CD team, you'll be a foundational technical leader on a high-visibility greenfield initiative at the intersection of GitLab's core platform and its AI strategy. This is a greenfield initiative within GitLab's Deploy stage, building systems that bring true reconciliation, live state awareness, durable orchestration, and AI-native governance to GitLab's platform.
You'll be the technical leader who bridges architecture and execution — deeply engaging with complex system design, breaking it down into work the team can deliver, and solving the hard engineering problems that emerge along the way. You'll bring strong architectural instincts that influence how the system evolves, while keeping the team moving with clarity and momentum.
What you'll do
- Lead technical execution on the CD platform: decompose complex architectural designs into well-scoped, deliverable work and drive the team to ship with quality and confidence.
- Solve high-complexity engineering problems and contribute architectural feedback that shapes how the system evolves.
- Set and maintain the technical bar across the codebase through code review, mentorship, and example.
- Mentor engineers at all levels, helping them grow their technical capabilities and navigate difficult problems.
- Represent the CD team in cross-functional engineering discussions and contribute to written technical proposals and architectural documents.
- Participate in on-call rotations to help ensure GitLab.com availability targets are met.
What you'll bring
- Deep professional experience building backend services in Go, with a track record in high-scale production environments.
- Demonstrated expertise in distributed systems design, including durable workflow execution, state persistence, and event-driven architectures.
- Extensive experience leading or contributing to release orchestration, deployment automation, or continuous delivery systems at scale.
- Extensive hands-on experience with Docker and Kubernetes at production scale, including progressive delivery patterns such as blue/green and canary deployments.
- Strong familiarity with GitOps workflows and tools in that ecosystem.
- Experience with policy-based governance in software delivery systems.
- Proven ability to translate complex architecture into clear, executable engineering work across a team.
- Demonstrated ability to incorporate AI tools into daily engineering workflows to drive efficiency and quality.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with a bias toward async, documentation-first practices.
- Self-motivated and self-managing, with strong organizational judgment and a constructive approach to ambiguity.
Nice to have
- Experience with AI engineering or building AI-integrated product features.
- Ruby on Rails experience.
About the team
The GitLab CD team is a newly formed group within the Deploy stage. The team will be primarily Go engineers, with Ruby on Rails and frontend engineers joining as the product matures. You will work closely with adjacent teams across Verify, Runner, and Infrastructure, building in a collaborative, async-first environment where engineers take real ownership of outcomes. This is a rare opportunity to define the technical foundation of a high-visibility product area inside an established company operating at significant scale.
How GitLab Supports Full-Time Employees
- Benefits to support your health, finances, and well-being
- Flexible Paid Time Off
- Team Member Resource Groups
- Equity Compensation & Employee Stock Purchase Plan
- Growth and Development Fund
- Parental Leave
- Home Office Support
Please note that we welcome interest from candidates with varying levels of experience; many successful candidates do not meet every single requirement. Additionally, studies have shown that people from underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to a job unless they meet every single qualification. If you're excited about this role, please apply and allow our recruiters to assess your application.
**Country Hiring Guidelines: **GitLab hires new team members in countries around the world. All of our roles are remote, however some roles may carry specific location-based eligibility requirements. Our Talent Acquisition team can help answer any questions about location after starting the recruiting process.
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