Backend Engineer, Database Automation (Ruby)

GitLab

Remote, India Full-Time 2026-05-28

About GitLab

GitLab is a leading all-remote company that offers a comprehensive DevOps platform delivered as a single application. The Database Automation team operates within the Data Engineering organization, working across regions to improve infrastructure for GitLab.com and support self-managed customers. They partner closely with various teams, including infrastructure, software delivery, and analytics, and adopt a self-organized approach to their work.

About the Position

Introduction

As an Intermediate Backend Engineer in the Database Automation team at GitLab, you will develop and enhance frameworks, patterns, and tooling to ensure the scalability, health, and safety of GitLab's application datastores across GitLab.com and thousands of self-managed instances. You will collaborate with experienced engineers and cross-functional teams to build reliable backend features, learn data architecture best practices, and contribute to performance improvements within our infrastructure. This role offers hands-on experience with PostgreSQL and Ruby on Rails in an all-remote, team-based environment, with mentorship to grow your skills in data scalability, system design, and addressing complex reliability issues for self-managed customers.

Examples of projects include SQL Traffic Replay Tooling and a Background Operations Framework.

Responsibilities

Develop and iterate backend features and data frameworks to ensure safe and efficient data operations at scale across GitLab.com and self-managed deployments.
Collaborate with product management, UX, frontend, infrastructure, software delivery, and analytics teams to design and deliver high-performing, reliable solutions.
Review and enhance database-related changes from engineers and external contributors to maintain data integrity, safety, and performance in diverse environments.
Design, build, and maintain tooling and guardrails, such as SQL traffic replay and background operations frameworks, to proactively identify and resolve scalability, performance, and data health issues.
Research, design, and implement improvements for database performance, scalability, and data health, including soft delete strategies and database migration testing.
Document database best practices, anti-patterns, and data architecture guidance to empower developers to make informed and consistent choices.
Develop solutions for database upgrade paths and migration strategies, ensuring backward compatibility and reducing downtime and operational friction for self-managed customers with varied deployment configurations.
Achieve success by delivering incremental improvements and, over time, taking full ownership of larger work with shorter revision cycles.

Requirements

Professional software engineering experience with PostgreSQL in large, complex production environments, including performance tuning and troubleshooting.
Proficiency with Ruby on Rails or another Ruby framework, with experience in designing, implementing, and reviewing backend features and services.
Ability to analyze software design, algorithms, and performance trade-offs at a system level, particularly in data-intensive applications.
Strong written communication skills and comfort working asynchronously within an all-remote, distributed team.
Self-directed work style with effective organizational skills and the ability to manage priorities independently.
Alignment with GitLab's values, including transparency, teamwork, inclusion, and contributing to open-source practices.
Eagerness to learn and apply new tools and approaches, with transferable experience from related data, infrastructure, or developer tooling domains.