Staff Backend Engineer, AI at GitLab

About the role

Staff Backend Engineer (AI) shaping GitLab CI backend infrastructure at GitLab. Integrating AI into CI/CD workflows impacting performance, reliability, and usability.

As a Staff Backend Engineer (AI) in the Verify stage at GitLab, you'll help shape and scale the core infrastructure behind GitLab CI.
You'll play a central role in how we integrate AI into CI/CD workflows.
Your work will impact performance, reliability, and usability for people running millions of CI jobs, from small teams to the largest enterprises.
You'll set standards for what good looks like across our AI agent portfolio.
You'll also help responsibly integrate GitLab's Duo Agent Platform into CI workflows at scale, on a foundation that's fast, reliable, secure, and observable.
Shape and scale GitLab CI backend infrastructure to improve performance, reliability, and usability for users running jobs at high volume.
Design and implement AI-powered features for Agentic CI, including agents, agentic flows, and LLM-backed tooling that integrates with GitLab's Duo Agent Platform.

Advanced proficiency with Ruby and Ruby on Rails, with experience building and maintaining reliable backend services in a large codebase.
Strong PostgreSQL skills, including data modeling, query tuning, and scaling large tables through proactive performance investigation and remediation.
Hands-on experience building, running, and debugging high-traffic production systems, ideally in CI, workflow orchestration, or adjacent infrastructure-heavy domains.
Practical experience designing and shipping AI-powered backend features and integrations, including sound judgment about large language model limitations and responsible use in production.
A data-driven approach to engineering: defining hypotheses, establishing baseline metrics, instrumenting changes, and measuring outcomes against clear success criteria.
Familiarity with observability patterns and tools (metrics, logging, tracing) to diagnose issues, improve reliability, and guide iteration.
Strong backend architecture and delivery practices, including secure design, well-tested code, and strategies for safe rollouts and zero-downtime changes.
Clear written and verbal communication skills, including writing technical proposals and documentation, and collaborating effectively in a remote, asynchronous, cross-functional environment.