Staff Backend Engineer, EMEA

GitLab
United Kingdom
Workplace: RemoteFull timeFunction: Software EngineeringSkills: ["Technical leadership","Cross-team collaboration","Written communication","Mentorship","Influence without authority","Product judgment"]

Provide technical leadership for large, cross-cutting backend initiatives, guiding GitLab’s modular architecture strategy and setting standards that improve API, security, reliability, and operability. Modernize monolith and legacy backends toward reusable, independently operated systems while preventing fragmentation. Partner across Product, Frontend, Infrastructure, Security, and Data teams without formal authority, mentor engineers, drive AI-assisted/agentic engineering adoption with guardrails, and support on-call incident response.

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FursaFursa
GitLab
GitLab
3 days ago

Staff Backend Engineer, EMEA

✓ Verified Job

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Source: Company careers pageValidated by: Fursa AI
Last checked: 20 hours agoStatus: Live

Job Summary

Provide technical leadership for large, cross-cutting backend initiatives, guiding GitLab’s modular architecture strategy and setting standards that improve API, security, reliability, and operability. Modernize monolith and legacy backends toward reusable, independently operated systems while preventing fragmentation. Partner across Product, Frontend, Infrastructure, Security, and Data teams without formal authority, mentor engineers, drive AI-assisted/agentic engineering adoption with guardrails, and support on-call incident response.
Location: United Kingdom
Workplace: Remote
Employment Type: Full time
Job Function: Software Engineering
Seniority: Mid level

Key Responsibilities

  • •Lead the technical design and delivery of large backend initiatives spanning teams and remove systemic bottlenecks across product and infrastructure groups.
  • •Drive modular backend/service/data/platform architecture, modernizing the monolith and legacy backends while preventing fragmentation and service sprawl.
  • •Define and improve standards for APIs, contracts, schema evolution, testing, security, performance, observability, and maintainability, including safe build/release/rollback practices.
  • •Create shared patterns for dependency management, data ownership, eventing, failure isolation, service maturity, and operational documentation; guide Go service patterns, Kubernetes practices, and Rust adoption where relevant.
  • •Participate in on-call and incident response for owned systems, mentor senior and intermediate engineers, and lead AI adoption with review, quality, security, privacy, and operational guardrails.

Pay and Benefits

Perks:Paid LeaveEquity CompensationEquityLearning BudgetParental Leave

Key Requirements

  • •A sustained record of technical leadership across more than one team or a broad product area.
  • •Deep backend architecture and production experience in complex applications, services, or platforms.
  • •Experience modernizing a monolith or legacy backend in production, including modular architecture approaches.
  • •Ability to create alignment through clear written proposals and decision records without constant escalation.
  • •Production experience with AI-assisted or agentic engineering workflows, including evaluating and improving team adoption.
  • •Experience mentoring engineers through code review, documentation, and example.
Experience:DevSecOpsPlatform engineeringModular architectureSaaSCloud-native
Skills:Technical leadershipCross-team collaborationWritten communicationMentorshipInfluence without authorityProduct judgment
Tech Stack:GoKubernetesRustRubyRuby on RailsPostgreSQLAPIModular monolithBounded contextsPorts and adaptersEvent-driven boundariesDependency managementSchema evolutionObservabilityRollbackProduction readinessAI-assisted engineeringAgentic engineeringSecurity guardrailsService platform

Company Brief

GitLab
Provides a single application for the complete DevSecOps lifecycle, offering source code management, CI/CD, security, and collaboration tools to help teams deliver software faster and more securely.
Industry: Developer Tools
Company Size: Enterprise (1,001+ employees)
Revenue: USD 250M to 500M
Growth: Public Company
Valuation: Public Company (Market Cap in USD)
Funding: IPO / Publicly Listed
Headquarters: San Francisco, United States
Founded: 2011
WebsiteLinkedIn