Backend Engineer, Source Code: Repository Services (Ruby)

at GitLab

📍 United Kingdom

USD 115,200-194,400 per year

MIDDLE

✅ Remote

Tech Stack
Tag name is followed by "@" symbol and proficiency level value. About proficiency levels:

1-2 — basic awareness. Minimal hands-on experience, and a rudimentary understanding of the technology's purpose;

3-6 — daily use. Comfortable and regular usage, capable of handling common tasks and challenges related to the technology;

7-9 — you are an expert, you can teach others, you know all the pitfalls and tricks;

10 — exceptional knowledge, comprehensive understanding, and adeptness in all aspects of the technology, including advanced problem-solving. Think twice before claiming or demanding such level.

AI @ 3 Communication @ 3 Data Modeling @ 3 Git @ 2 GraphQL @ 3 Observability Product Management @ 3 Ruby @ 3 Security @ 3 TAG

Details

GitLab is seeking a Backend Engineer to join the Repository Services team in the Create stage. The team owns the repository side of Source Code, including how code enters a repository, who may change it, and how changes are verified. The role involves building an access layer on Gitaly's primitives for GitLab features and AI agents that write and push code.

The team works across GitLab.com, self-managed instances, and GitLab Dedicated. Repository Services is a new team focused initially on reliability and support, including performance and structured query language tuning, caching, rate limiting, testing, observability, and resiliency. The role involves collaboration with product management, product design, testing, security, user experience research, technical writing, Gitaly, Code Review, and other Source Code teams.

Responsibilities

Develop secure, well-tested, performant features and improvements using Ruby and GraphQL.
Work through complex requirements and legacy constraints while protecting system reliability.
Design and maintain backend services, application programming interfaces, data models, and business logic controlling repository access, changes, and verification.
Build on Gitaly's primitives and collaborate closely with the Gitaly team.
Triage and fix bugs and support requests for owned features.
Collaborate across functions and teams asynchronously and synchronously.
Use AI agents for appropriately scoped work and critically review their output.
Write maintainable code according to GitLab standards and contribute to code reviews.
Monitor production health metrics, participate in Tier 2 on-call, troubleshoot incidents, contribute to root cause analysis, and improve observability and resiliency.
Share knowledge through code review, technical documentation, and daily collaboration.

Requirements

Professional experience building backend web applications, services, or application programming interfaces.
Experience with Ruby and GraphQL.
Understanding of relational databases, structured query language, data modeling, caching, background processing, and backend performance practices.
Experience contributing to user-facing workflows and maintaining their underlying systems.
Experience writing backend unit and integration tests, with familiarity with the testing pyramid, Git, and collaborative code review.
Experience using AI coding agents and reviewing their output, or interest in developing these skills in a complex monorepo.
Clear written and spoken English communication skills, including status updates in a remote, asynchronous environment.
Ability to manage priorities, work through ambiguity, take ownership, and seek guidance when needed.

Team Scope

Repository Services is a small backend team formed in September 2026. Its expected areas of ownership include repository mirroring, Git Large File Storage (LFS), protected branches and Branch Rules, push rules, Code Owners shared with Code Review, and commit and tag signing.