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An overview of this role

As a Staff Backend Engineer in our Compliance group, you'll provide technical leadership in maturing enterprise-grade Compliance features which have a direct impact on GitLab's enterprise sales success. The Compliance group's mission is to provide visibility into an organization's compliance posture within GitLab and provide tools for organizations to identify non-compliant activities and scope enforcement of compliance requirements.

The compliance group is focused on two key areas; Compliance Management and Audit Events. Our biggest challenge is to design and implement a scalable backend architecture that will support our ambitious expansion plans. As a Staff Engineer, you'll be instrumental in defining the technical strategy and architectural decisions that will shape the future of our compliance features, with a particular focus on backend systems, data processing, and API design.

Some examples of our projects:

• Compliance Frameworks

• Adherence Report

• Streaming audit events

What You’ll Do

• Drive technical excellence by defining and implementing backend architectural solutions that solve complex compliance challenges at scale
• Lead the technical direction of the Compliance group's backend systems and play a pivotal role in shaping GitLab's Compliance offering through strategic technical decisions
• Design and implement robust, scalable APIs and data models that support compliance features
• Identify and proactively address technical debt while implementing solutions that improve backend performance, reliability, and maintainability
• Represent GitLab in public communications about compliance initiatives and interact with enterprise customers as a technical spokesperson
• Mentor backend engineers across the team to help them grow technically and remove impediments to their autonomy
• Define and maintain internal standards for backend code quality, security, and performance that impact both the Compliance group and adjacent teams
• Solve complex backend technical problems involving data processing, system integration, and scalability
• Drive innovation in our backend systems by experimenting with new approaches to complex compliance challenges
• Provide technical leadership in planning sessions and architectural discussions to ensure backend scalability, performance, and maintainability

What You’ll Bring

• Extensive experience architecting and maintaining large-scale Ruby on Rails applications, with deep expertise in backend systems and advanced testing strategies with RSpec
• Strong technical leadership in API design and implementation, with particular expertise in GraphQL API architecture and backend performance optimization
• Expert-level understanding of database design and optimization, particularly with PostgreSQL, including experience with performance tuning, scaling, and complex query optimization
• Deep expertise in backend security principles and experience implementing compliance-focused security measures in enterprise applications
• Experience designing and implementing event-driven architectures and background processing systems
• Advanced knowledge of caching strategies, query optimization, and backend performance tuning
• Proven ability to influence technical decisions across teams and communicate complex architectural solutions to various stakeholders
• Track record of mentoring backend engineers and driving adoption of best practices across engineering teams
• Experience leading technical initiatives that span multiple backend systems or services
• Strong understanding of compliance requirements in enterprise software development

About the team

Thanks to our Transparency value, you can see what we are working on in our Team page. You can even see our roadmap and listen to some of our meetings and view some of our recent demos.

How GitLab will support you

• Benefits to support your health, finances, and well-being
• All remote, asynchronous work environment
• 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.