Senior or Staff Backend Engineer (Database Excellence)

Postgres
UNITED STATES
October 25, 2026
Full Time
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Job Description

Company: GitLab
Location: Remote (US)
Workplace Type: Remote
Employment Type: Full-time
Pay / Compensation: $152,800—$259,200 USD (US base salary range)

About the Role

As a Senior or Staff Backend Engineer with the Database Excellence group, you’ll build and evolve database automation and PostgreSQL as a service capabilities for GitLab. You’ll use Go to automate the full lifecycle of PostgreSQL across GitLab’s infrastructure, making database operations safer, more consistent, and easier to scale for databases that sit behind high-throughput, always-on internet services. You’ll work closely with partner teams to shape how GitLab provisions and manages PostgreSQL in a fully remote, highly collaborative environment.

What You’ll Do / Key Responsibilities

  • Design and Build Automation: Design, build, and maintain Go-based automation that manages the full PostgreSQL lifecycle, including provisioning, configuration, upgrades, failover, scaling, and decommissioning.
  • Scale Infrastructure: Build for internet scale by designing automation and services for high-throughput, always-on production workloads, where GitLab.com traffic sets the bar for correctness, latency, and availability.
  • PostgreSQL as a Service: Build GitLab’s PostgreSQL as a service platform to replace bespoke database setups with standardized, automated provisioning and lifecycle management.
  • Performance & Data Health: Research, design, and implement improvements to PostgreSQL performance, scalability, and data health, helping maintain more than 8 months of operational runway for all critical database saturation points.
  • Upgrade Automation: Build safe, repeatable automation for PostgreSQL major version upgrades at GitLab.com scale, validating changes against real production traffic before rollout.
  • Production Operations: Operate what you build in production from end to end, using production feedback to guide each iteration.

Requirements & Qualifications

  • Professional Experience: Professional software engineering experience working with PostgreSQL in large, complex production environments, including experience building or operating a database-as-a-service product.
  • Programming Proficiency: Proficiency with Go, including designing, implementing, testing, and reviewing backend services.
  • Stateful Automation: Experience developing Kubernetes operators, controllers, or similar automation for the lifecycle of stateful services, especially databases.
  • Core Operations: Comfort with infrastructure as code and core database operations concepts such as high availability, replication, backups, and system-level performance trade-offs.
  • Communication: Strong written communication skills and comfort working asynchronously in an all-remote, distributed team.

Preferred / Bonus Qualifications (if applicable)

  • Familiarity with Ruby (helpful for reading the application codebase when designing automation).
  • Experience building Kubernetes operators or controllers.

Benefits & Perks (if applicable)

  • Flexible Paid Time Off
  • Team Member Resource Groups
  • Equity Compensation & Employee Stock Purchase Plan
  • Growth and Development Fund
  • Parental Leave

GitLab is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer.

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