Staff Backend Engineer, Developer Experience

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—ensuring 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—helping 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
• Experience leading platform or transformation initiatives across multiple teams
• 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

The base salary range for this role’s listed level is currently for residents of the United States only. This range is intended to reflect the role's base salary rate in locations throughout the US. Grade level and salary ranges are determined through interviews and a review of education, experience, knowledge, skills, abilities of the applicant, equity with other team members, alignment with market data, and geographic location. The base salary range does not include any bonus

es, equity, or benefits. See more information on our benefits and equity. Sales roles are also eligible for incentive pay targeted at up to 100% of the offered base salary.

United States Salary Range$131,600—$282,000 USDHow 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

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.