Staff Systems Engineer, IT

at GitLab

📍 United States

USD 126,000-213,600 per year

SENIOR

✅ 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 @ 4 API @ 6 AWS @ 1 Audit Azure @ 1 Communication @ 6 Compliance IaC JavaScript @ 7 Observability @ 4 Python @ 7 Reporting @ 4 SRE @ 4 Security Slack Terraform @ 4 iPaaS @ 4

Details

GitLab is seeking a senior, hands-on generalist systems engineer to own the platforms and integrations supporting the employee lifecycle, including onboarding, transfers, role changes, and offboarding. The role focuses on infrastructure-as-code, SRE practices, IT service management, AI-enabled automation, and shared IT infrastructure across GitLab's cloud footprint.

Responsibilities

Design, build, and own end-to-end automation for employee lifecycle processes so provisioning and deprovisioning are accurate and require minimal human intervention.
Serve as the technical owner of GitLab's ITSM platform, including service catalog design, workflows, request, incident, and change processes, integrations, and platform upgrades.
Increase AI deflection rates by deploying and tuning virtual agents, AI search, and agentic resolution capabilities.
Identify repetitive manual workflows across IT and partner teams and replace them with automation built in the ITSM platform and Serval.
Build and maintain integrations with Okta, Google Workspace, Slack, Zoom, JAMF, Fleet, Workday, and GitLab.
Manage IT-owned infrastructure as code across cloud environments using version control, code review, and automated, auditable deployment processes.
Apply SRE principles, including monitoring, alerting, reliability targets, capacity and cost awareness, and blameless post-incident reviews.
Develop knowledge management and self-service experiences that support AI deflection, including knowledge articles, catalog items, and conversational flows.
Instrument automation and AI performance with metrics and dashboards covering deflection rate, time to resolution, automation coverage, and failure rates.
Set engineering standards for version control, testing, code review, environment management, and change control.
Mentor support engineers across the IT organization.
Partner with Security and Compliance to ensure lifecycle automation and AI workflows meet access, audit, SOX, and SOC 2 requirements.
Document architecture, runbooks, and design decisions in the GitLab handbook.

Requirements

Broad experience as a generalist systems engineer who has owned a wide range of platforms end to end.
Solid infrastructure-as-code experience with Terraform or similar tools.
Working knowledge of SRE principles, including observability, monitoring, alerting, reliability targets, and blameless post-incident reviews.
Experience running workloads in a major public cloud; knowledge of AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure is a plus.
Experience designing or operating virtual desktop infrastructure such as Azure Virtual Desktop, Amazon WorkSpaces, or Citrix.
Experience automating employee lifecycle processes across HRIS, identity, and endpoint management systems for a distributed or remote workforce.
Experience with workflow automation and iPaaS tools such as Okta Workflows, Serval, or similar, and with an ITSM platform.
Familiarity with AI-enabled service capabilities, including virtual agents, AI search, and agentic resolution.
Strong scripting and development skills in Python, JavaScript, or similar languages.
Fluency with REST APIs, webhooks, and event-driven integration patterns.
Experience defining and reporting operational metrics.
Excellent written communication skills suited to an all-remote, asynchronous company, with the ability to influence stakeholders outside the reporting line.

Team

IT Engineering builds and operates the systems and automation supporting GitLab's all-remote company, including identity, endpoints, employee lifecycle processes, and IT service management. The team operates asynchronously and transparently, treating internal platforms like products through versioning, testing, measurement, and continuous iteration.