Associate Backend Engineer

Backend Engineers at GitLab work on our product. This includes both the open source version of GitLab, the enterprise editions, and the GitLab.com service as well. They work with peers on teams dedicated to areas of the product. They work together with product managers, designers, and frontend engineers to solve common goals.

Responsibilities

Develop features and improvements to the GitLab product in a secure, well-tested, and performant way
Collaborate with Product Management and other stakeholders within Engineering (Frontend, UX, etc.) to maintain a high bar for quality in a fast-paced, iterative environment
Advocate for improvements to product quality, security, and performance
Solve technical problems of moderate scope and complexity.
Craft code that meets our internal standards for style, maintainability, and best practices for a high-scale web environment. Maintain and advocate for these standards through code review.
Conduct Code Review within our Code Review Guidelines and ensure community contributions receive a swift response.
Represent GitLab and its values in public communication around specific projects and community contributions.
Confidently ship small features and improvements with minimal guidance and support from other team members. Collaborate with the team on larger projects.

Requirements

Experience with Ruby on Rails or language required by the specialty
Experience with any other technologies that may be required by the specialty
Proficiency in the English language, both written and verbal, sufficient for success in a remote and largely asynchronous work environment
Demonstrated capacity to clearly and concisely communicate about technical, and/or organizational problems and propose thorough iterative solutions
Comfort working in a highly agile, intensely iterative software development process
Ability to onboard and integrate with an organization long-term
Positive and solution-oriented mindset
Effective communication skills: Regularly achieve consensus with peers, and clear status updates
An inclination towards communication, inclusion, and visibility
Self-motivated and self-managing, with strong organizational skills.
Ability to work closely with other parts of the organization
Share our values, and work in accordance with those values
Ability to thrive in a fully remote organization
Ability to use GitLab

Nice-to-haves

Experience in a peak performance organization, preferably a tech startup
Experience with the GitLab product as a user or contributor
Product company experience
Experience working with a remote team
Enterprise software company experience
Developer platform/tool industry experience
Experience working with a global or otherwise multicultural team
Computer science education or equivalent experience
Passionate about/experienced with open source and developer tools

Professional Experience

At GitLab, due to the pace we’re moving, people joining our team will be expected to have significant professional experience in the primary programming language of the specialty that they’ll be joining. Because the majority of our codebase is written in Ruby, even in specialized roles, a knowledge of Ruby and Ruby on Rails or a desire to learn and contribute is necessary.

For context, see this merge request with some history on this policy.

Primary programming language

Some specialties within GitLab are using primary programming languages other than Ruby. These programming languages are defined as being primary in terms of an engineer’s experience and what they’ll be writing day to day. The expectation from the specialty is that engineers will have extensive experience in this primary programming language as well as some level of understanding of Ruby and Ruby on Rails.

Levels

Job Grade

The Associate Backend Engineer is a grade 5.

Hiring Process

Candidates for this position can expect the hiring process to follow the order below. Please keep in mind that candidates can be declined from the position at any stage of the process. To learn more about someone who may be conducting the interview, find their job title on our team page.

Selected candidates will be invited to complete a short written assessment.
Qualified candidates will be invited to schedule a 30 minute screening call with one of our Global Recruiters.
Next, candidates will be invited to schedule a 90 minute technical interview with either a Backend Engineer or a Backend Engineering Manager
Next, candidates will be invited to schedule a 45 minute behavioral interview with an Engineering Manager
Candidates will then be invited to schedule a 60 minute interview with a Senior Manager or Director of Engineering
Successful candidates will subsequently be made an offer.

Additional details about our process can be found on our hiring page.

About Gitlab

GitLab Inc. is a company based on the GitLab open-source project. GitLab is a community project to which over 2,200 people worldwide have contributed. We are an active participant in this community, trying to serve its needs and lead by example. We have one vision: everyone can contribute to all digital content, and our mission is to change all creative work from read-only to read-write so that everyone can contribute.

We value results, transparency, sharing, freedom, efficiency, self-learning, frugality, collaboration, directness, kindness, diversity, inclusion and belonging, boring solutions, and quirkiness. If these values match your personality, work ethic, and personal goals, we encourage you to visit our primer to learn more. Open source is our culture, our way of life, our story, and what makes us truly unique.

Top 10 Reasons to Work for GitLab:

Mission: Everyone can contribute
Results: Fast growth, ambitious vision
Flexible Work Hours: Plan your day so you are there for other people & have time for personal interests
Transparency: Over 2,000 webpages in GitLab handbook, GitLab Unfiltered YouTube channel
Iteration: Empower people to be effective & have an impact, Merge Request rate, We dogfood our own product, Directly responsible individuals
Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging: A focus on gender parity, Team Member Resource Groups, other initiatives
Collaboration: Kindness, saying thanks, intentionally organize informal communication, no ego
Total Rewards: Competitive market rates for compensation, Equity compensation, global benefits (inclusive of office equipment)
Work/Life Harmony: Flexible workday, Family and Friends days
Remote Done Right: One of the world's largest all-remote companies, prolific inventor of remote best practices

See our culture page for more!

Work remotely from anywhere in the world. Curious to see what that looks like? Check out our remote manifesto and guides.

Last modified August 21, 2023: Fix more broken links (2de84c34)