Staff Backend Engineer, Developer Experience
GitLab
Job Overview
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Job Description
About GitLab and the Role
GitLab is the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps, enabling organizations to boost developer productivity, enhance operational efficiency, mitigate security and compliance risks, and accelerate digital transformation. Trusted by over 50 million registered users and more than 50% of the Fortune 100, GitLab empowers teams to ship better, more secure software faster. Our internal culture mirrors our product principles, embracing AI as a key productivity multiplier for all team members. GitLab is a place where careers flourish, innovation thrives, and every contribution is valued, driven by a high-performance culture, continuous learning, and collaboration with industry leaders to solve complex challenges.
As a Staff Backend Engineer in the Developer Experience group, you will play a crucial cross-functional role in identifying and improving the engineering experience for GitLab's internal engineering teams. This is a pivotal time for transforming our testing approach and development experience to enable engineers to deliver high-quality code efficiently and with confidence.
The Developer Experience group comprises six globally distributed teams of Backend Engineers and Software Engineers in Test. In this role, you will work across the entire group to identify and eliminate major points of friction in development at GitLab. Your time will be split between hands-on coding in Ruby and Go, designing scalable solutions, and supporting every team in their delivery. You will also be instrumental in shaping GitLab's engineering culture. This highly visible role has strong company-wide support and will be key in shifting our culture and practices toward a cohesive Developer Experience Platform strategy, backed by organizational buy-in for change.
What you'll do as a Staff Backend Engineer, Developer Experience
- Drive Technical Excellence Across Teams: Provide hands-on engineering contributions and technical leadership across six Developer Experience teams, stepping in to unblock critical work or accelerate high-impact initiatives.
- Champion Engineering Needs: Partner with engineering teams across GitLab to identify pain points, gather feedback, and translate day-to-day frustrations into actionable improvements for the Developer Experience roadmap.
- Transform Testing at Scale: Modernize our testing infrastructure to support GitLab's growth, ensuring engineers have fast, reliable tools that detect issues early without hindering their workflow.
- Optimize CI/CD Pipelines: Reduce merge and CI friction by building workflows that provide fast, actionable feedback, helping engineers iterate confidently and ship faster.
- Break Down Systemic Bottlenecks: Collaborate with Platform, Product, and Infrastructure teams to identify and eliminate architectural and process friction that slows down development.
- Shape Engineering Culture: Foster a culture of continuous learning, inclusion, and improvement, where an exceptional developer experience is a shared organizational value.
What you'll bring
- Deep experience with developer tooling, DevEx strategies, and testing frameworks at scale.
- Experience leading platform or transformation initiatives across multiple teams.
- Proven ability to influence without authority and collaborate effectively across functions.
- Familiarity with DevOps workflows and CI/CD pipelines.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills in a remote-first environment.
- A product mindset with a passion for empowering developers.
- Alignment with GitLab values, especially collaboration, iteration, and transparency.
How GitLab Will Support You
GitLab offers comprehensive benefits to support your health, finances, and overall well-being. This includes flexible Paid Time Off, Team Member Resource Groups, Equity Compensation & Employee Stock Purchase Plan, a Growth and Development Fund, Parental leave, and Home office support.
Key skills/competency
- Developer Experience (DevEx)
- Backend Engineering
- Ruby
- Go
- DevOps
- CI/CD
- Testing Frameworks
- Platform Engineering
- Technical Leadership
- System Architecture
How to Get Hired at GitLab
- Research GitLab's culture: Study their mission, values like collaboration and transparency, recent news, and employee testimonials on LinkedIn and Glassdoor to understand their remote-first, async work environment.
- Customize your resume for DevEx: Highlight deep experience in developer tooling, platform engineering, and CI/CD optimization, specifically tailoring accomplishments to the Staff Backend Engineer, Developer Experience role at GitLab.
- Showcase Ruby/Go expertise: Emphasize projects demonstrating proficiency in Ruby and Go, along with experience in scaling testing frameworks and improving developer workflows, as these are critical for the role.
- Prepare for behavioral interviews: Practice articulating how you've influenced without authority, driven cross-functional initiatives, and fostered a culture of continuous improvement in previous Staff Backend Engineer, Developer Experience roles.
- Understand the remote hiring process: Familiarize yourself with GitLab's all-remote hiring process and be prepared for asynchronous communication and virtual interviews, demonstrating your ability to thrive in such an environment.
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