Backend Engineer, Database Excellence (Ruby) (Remote)

Backend Engineer, Database Excellence (Ruby) Location: Remote, Canada; Remote, US Department: Data Engineering 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 an Intermediate Backend Engineer in the Database Excellence group, youll develop and enhance the frameworks, patterns, and tooling that keep GitLabs application datastores scalable, healthy, and safe across GitLab.com and thousands of self-managed instances. Youll work closely with experienced engineers and cross-functional teams to build reliable backend features, learn best practices in data architecture and lifecycle management, and contribute to identifying and addressing performance improvements in our infrastructure. As part of the Data Engineering organization, youll gain hands-on experience with PostgreSQL and Ruby on Rails in an all-remote, highly collaborative environment where youll receive mentorship and grow your skills in data scalability and system design. Some examples of our projects: • SQL Traffic Replay Tooling • Background Operations Framework What youll do • Develop and iterate backend features and data frameworks that make it safe and efficient to work with data at scale across GitLab.com and self-managed deployments. • Collaborate with product management, UX, frontend, infrastructure, software delivery, and analytics teams to design and ship high-performing, reliable solutions. • Review and improve database-related changes from other engineers and external contributors to ensure data integrity, safety, and performance across diverse environments. • Design, build, and maintain tooling such as SQL traffic replay and background operations frameworks to proactively detect and address scalability and performance issues. • Research, design, and implement improvements to database performance, scalability, and data health, including areas like soft delete strategies and database migration testing. • Document database best practices, anti-patterns, and data architecture guidance so developers can make informed, consistent decisions. • Create proactive tooling and guardrails that help developers detect and remediate potential performance and data issues early in the development lifecycle. What youll bring • Professional software engineering experience working with PostgreSQL in large, complex production environments, including performance tuning and troubleshooting. • Proficiency with Ruby on Rails or another Ruby framework, with experience designing, implementing, and reviewing backend features and services. • Ability to reason about software design, algorithms, and performance trade-offs at a system level, especially in data-intensive applications. • Strong written communication skills and comfort working asynchronously in an all-remote, distributed team. • Self-directed work style with effective organizational skills and the ability to manage priorities as a manager of one. • Alignment with GitLabs values, including transparency, collaboration, inclusion, and contribution to open source practices. • Openness to learning and applying new tools and approaches, including transferable experience from related data, infrastructure, or developer tooling domains. About the team The Database Excellence Group is a remote, agile backend team within the Data Engineering organization that builds and maintains the frameworks, patterns, and tooling that enable GitLab teams to work confidently with data at scale across all application datastores. We focus on data scalability, health, and developer enablement for both GitLab.com and thousands of self-managed deployments, partnering closely with infrastructure, software delivery, and analyti