Principal Engineer, Infrastructure Platforms

Overview: Principal Engineer, Infrastructure Platforms at GitLab

GitLab is an open-core software company renowned for its comprehensive AI-powered DevSecOps Platform, trusted by over 100,000 organizations. Our core mission is to empower everyone to contribute to and co-create the software shaping our world, accelerating human progress by turning consumers into contributors. The platform fosters collaboration, breaking down barriers in software development, with products like Duo Enterprise and Duo Agent Platform delivering AI benefits across the entire SDLC.

Our internal operations mirror our product principles, with a strong emphasis on AI as a productivity multiplier. Every team member is encouraged to integrate AI into daily workflows to boost efficiency, innovation, and impact. GitLab offers an environment where careers thrive, innovation flourishes, and all voices are valued. Our high-performance culture, driven by our values and continuous knowledge sharing, enables team members to reach their full potential while collaborating with industry leaders to solve complex problems. Join us to co-create the future of software development.

The Role: Principal Engineer, Infrastructure Platforms

As a Principal Engineer, Infrastructure Platforms at GitLab, you will be instrumental in defining the technical direction for our most critical infrastructure platforms. This role demands an organizational-scale impact, encompassing architecture ownership, solving intricate systems problems, and driving initiatives that are vital to GitLab's growth, performance, and reliability.

You will act as a primary technical authority and a force multiplier, leading architectural decisions across our distributed and cloud-native systems. Your responsibility will be to translate business strategy into robust and durable technical direction. Operating across multiple teams and domains, you will clarify ambiguous challenges, elevate engineering standards, and mentor senior talent, all while remaining accountable for tangible production outcomes. This is a hands-on, high-impact position designed for leaders who achieve success through influence and are capable of shaping the foundational platforms upon which the entire organization depends.

Organizational Focus Areas

Principal Engineers at GitLab play a strategic role across our key infrastructure and delivery groups. Placement within the following tracks is determined by business needs and organizational priorities:

• Production Engineering (Infrastructure Platforms): Lead high-impact platform initiatives for our multi-tenant SaaS infrastructure. You will define the technical roadmap for Production Engineering to ensure global operations remain resilient and modern. This involves leading strategy and execution for multi-tenant SaaS infrastructure in collaboration with other Platform teams, and partnering with Database Operations and Cells teams to align efforts with the overall platform strategy.
• Group Tenant Scale (GTS): Build GitLab’s next-generation, multi-tenant, horizontally scalable, and resilient SaaS platform. You will architect the foundations for other engineering teams and drive convergence across GitLab’s various platforms. Key aspects include leading the design and evolution of projects for distributed, multi-tenant SaaS transformation (e.g., Cells, Organizations, OrgMover), architecting for zero downtime, transparent relocation, and application hardening in massive distributed environments, and guiding architecture decisions with availability, reliability, resiliency, performance, and cost as primary considerations.
• GitLab Delivery: Focus on enhancing the reliability, efficiency, and speed of GitLab’s end-to-end software delivery across all platforms and offerings. This involves leading the platform strategy across Developer Experience, CI infrastructure, packaging, and release delivery for SaaS, Self-Managed, and Dedicated offerings. You will treat GitLab engineers as customers, building self-service tooling, testing infrastructure, and paved paths to increase velocity while maintaining quality, and architecting reliable, automated pipelines for packaging, releasing, and deploying GitLab across all platforms.

What You'll Do

• Own and drive the architectural direction for critical infrastructure platforms supporting GitLab at global scale.
• Lead the design and evolution of large platforms and distributed systems that are scalable, resilient, secure, and cost-efficient.
• Serve as the technical authority on complex initiatives, guiding decisions that impact multiple teams and product areas.
• Translate business and product strategy into long-term technical roadmaps and execution plans.
• Drive alignment across engineering, product, and leadership through clear communication of tradeoffs and recommendations.
• Establish technical standards and architectural patterns to enhance quality and consistency across the organization.
• Be accountable for production outcomes, including reliability, performance, and operational excellence.
• Mentor senior engineers, acting as a force multiplier through influence rather than direct authority.
• Operate effectively in ambiguous problem spaces where both the problem and the solution require definition.

What You'll Bring

• Proven experience designing and evolving large-scale platforms or distributed systems in cloud-native environments.
• Strong proficiency in Golang and/or Ruby, with the ability to contribute to, review, and guide core architectural changes in production codebases.
• Strong architectural judgment, balancing scalability, reliability, performance, security, and cost.
• Experience owning platform-level technical decisions impacting multiple teams or an entire engineering domain.
• Solid understanding of Kubernetes-based environments as a production platform, including their influence on system design, deployment models, reliability, and operational complexity.
• Experience being accountable for production systems, not just design recommendations.
• Ability to author and drive long-term technical strategy and multi-month roadmaps.
• Track record of leading through influence and shaping technical direction without direct authority.
• Comfort making high-impact technical decisions, including build vs. buy vs. partner tradeoffs.
• Strong communication skills, explaining complex technical concepts to engineers, leadership, and non-technical stakeholders.

About The Team

This Principal Engineer role is part of GitLab’s Infrastructure Platforms organization, collaborating across multiple teams to define how our platform scales and operates. This group manages GitLab’s most critical systems, including the multi-tenant SaaS platform, core delivery pipelines, and underlying infrastructure supporting millions of users. As a Principal Engineer, you will define technical direction, guide architectural decisions, and ensure our platforms remain resilient, performant, and modern. The team operates fully remotely, collaborating asynchronously across time zones, adhering to GitLab’s values of transparency, autonomy, and open communication. You will contribute to solving complex distributed systems challenges at scale, mentor engineers, and foster a culture focused on reliability, efficiency, and continuous improvement.

How GitLab Supports You

GitLab provides comprehensive support for its team members, including:

• Benefits covering health, finances, and overall 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.

Key Skills/Competency

• Infrastructure Architecture
• Distributed Systems
• Cloud-Native Platforms
• Golang
• Ruby
• Kubernetes
• DevSecOps
• SaaS Platforms
• System Reliability
• Technical Leadership