Staff Backend Engineer, Developer Experience (Ruby)

About the Role

Our Developer Experience group currently has six globally distributed teams of Backend Engineers and Software Engineers in Test. In this role, you’ll work across our entire group to identify and remove the biggest points of friction that affect development at GitLab. You’ll split your time between hands-on coding in Ruby and Go, designing scalable solutions, and helping every team deliver. You’ll also be instrumental in shaping our engineering culture across GitLab. This is a highly visible role with strong company-wide support. You’ll be instrumental in shifting our culture and practices toward a cohesive Developer Experience Platform strategy, backed by buy-in and appetite for change. What you’ll do

Drive Technical Excellence Across Teams: Provide hands-on engineering contributions and technical leadership across six Developer Experience teams, jumping 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: Help us modernize our testing to support GitLab's growth and ensure engineers have fast, reliable tools that catch issues early without slowing them down. Optimize CI/CD Pipelines: Reduce merge and CI friction by building workflows that deliver fast, actionable feedback and help engineers iterate confidently and ship faster. Break Down Systemic Bottlenecks: Collaborate with Platform, Product, and Infrastructure teams to identify and eliminate the architectural and process friction that slows down development. Shape Engineering Culture: Foster a culture of continuous learning, inclusion, and improvement, where great developer experience is a shared value across the organization.

What you’ll bring

Deep experience with developer tooling, DevEx strategies, and testing frameworks at scale.

Requirements

Proven ability to influence without authority and collaborate 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

Benefits

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.   Privacy Policy: Please review our Recruitment Privacy Policy. Your privacy is important to us. GitLab is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. GitLab’s policies and practices relating to recruitment, employment, career development and advancement, promotion, and retirement are based solely on merit, regardless of race, color, religion, ancestry, sex (including pregnancy, lactation, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression), national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, mental or physical disability, genetic information (including family medical history), discharge status from the military, protected veteran status (which includes disabled veterans, recently separated veterans, active duty wartime or campaign badge veterans, and Armed Forces service medal veterans), or any other basis protected by law. GitLab will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics. See also GitLab’s EEO Policy and EEO is the Law. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know during the recruiting process.