Senior Backend Engineer (AI), Pipeline Execution at Gitlab

GitLab is the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps. GitLab enables organizations to increase developer productivity, improve operational efficiency, reduce security and compliance risk, and accelerate digital transformation. More than 50 million registered users and more than 50% of the Fortune 100* trust GitLab to ship better, more secure software faster. The same principles built into our products are reflected in how our team works: we embrace AI as a core productivity multiplier, with all team members expected to incorporate AI into their daily workflows to drive efficiency, innovation, and impact. GitLab is where careers accelerate, innovation flourishes, and every voice is valued. Our high-performance culture is driven by our values and continuous knowledge exchange, enabling our team members to reach their full potential while collaborating with industry leaders to solve complex problems. Co-create the future with us as we build technology that transforms how the world develops software. *Fortune 500® is a registered trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, used under license. Claim based on GitLab data. Fortune 100 refers to the top 20% ranked companies in the 2025 Fortune 500 list, published in June 2025. Fortune and Fortune Media IP Limited are not affiliated with, and do not endorse products or services of GitLab. An overview of this role As a Senior 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 key role in how we integrate AI into CI/CD workflows, working on features that improve performance, reliability, and usability for people running millions of CI jobs, from small teams to the largest enterprises. AI is a top priority in the year ahead. In this role, you'll go beyond using AI tools — you’ll design, build, and iterate on AI-assisted and agentic CI experiences. You’ll help define and implement patterns for how we measure success, how we instrument behavior in production, and how we account for large language model limitations in real-world environments. You’ll also help integrate GitLab's Duo Agent Platform into CI workflows at scale, on a foundation that's fast, reliable, secure, and observable. In this role, you will: • Collaborate with Engineering, Product, and UX partners to refine priorities: where we can move faster, where we’re missing data, and where there’s whitespace to innovate. • Contribute to defining what success looks like across our AI agents, ensuring we’re not just shipping, but learning from how features perform in production. • Keep a close eye on the competitive landscape and emerging AI-native DevOps tools, helping us understand what it takes to keep GitLab CI best-in-class in an increasingly agentic world. Examples of Agentic CI work we have planned for the upcoming year: • AI Pipeline Builder, the foundational CI agent that auto-creates pipelines for new projects and serves as the launchpad for onboarding new CI users. • Automate the Fix a Failing Pipeline flow at scale – from dogfooding on internal GitLab projects through to safe, controlled rollout for customers, solving real infrastructure and scalability challenges. • Build the instrumentation and observability layer that makes agentic CI trustworthy — trigger volume dashboards, retry rates, cost safeguards — so we can measure what’s working, catch what isn’t, and iterate with confidence. • Harden the CI pipeline execution infrastructure that these agents depend on: database access patterns, background processing, and job orchestration built to handle the additional load that AI-driven automation introduces at enterprise scale. What you’ll do: • Design, build, and operate backend features that make GitLab CI fast, reliable, and easy to use at scale. • Implement AI-powered and agentic CI capabilities that integrate with GitLab’s Duo Agent Platform. • Instrument, monitor, and improve CI systems using data, observability, and safe rollout practices. • Write secure, well-tested Ruby on Rails code in our monolith, improving existing features while reducing technical debt. • Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, UX, and Infrastructure, mentoring others and raising engineering standards across the Verify stage. What you’ll bring: • Strong Ruby on Rails backend experience in a large, production codebase. • In-depth experience building and operating AI-powered backend features in production. • A data- and observability-driven approach to diagnosing issues, improving reliability, and validating impact. • Clear written and verbal communication, with a collaborative, mentoring mindset in a remote, async environment. • Hands-on experience building, running, and debugging high-traffic production systems, ideally in CI, workflow orchestration, or adjacent infrastructure-heavy domains.Nice to have • Experience with AI agents or agentic frameworks (for example, LangChain or similar technologies) and building agentic workflows in production environments. • Strong PostgreSQL skills, including data modeling, query tuning, and scaling large tables through proactive performance investigation and remediation. How GitLab Supports Full-Time Employees • Benefits to support your health, finances, and 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 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.