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Senior Backend Engineer - Platform Insights

Summary

Build and evolve Go-based backend systems for GitLab's Data Insights Platform and Siphon, focusing on scalable ingestion, storage, querying, and deployment across SaaS, Dedicated, and Self-Managed environments.

Role Description

As a Senior Backend Engineer in Platform Insights, you'll build and evolve the core backend systems that power GitLab's data platform. In this role, you'll focus primarily on Go-based development for the Data Insights Platform and Siphon, with an emphasis on core system design, production readiness, and deployment across GitLab environments.

You'll own high-throughput, multi-component backend systems and help shape architecture, reliability, deployment, and operational maturity across GitLab's SaaS, Dedicated, and Self-Managed environments.

What you'll do

  • Design, build, and evolve backend services in Go for the Data Insights Platform and Siphon, focusing on scalable ingestion, transport, replication, storage, querying, and deployment paths.
  • Own significant parts of the backend architecture for Data Insights Platform, Siphon, and the Query API, including the gRPC integration between the Query API and the GitLab Rails application.
  • Shape technical direction for system boundaries, reliability, throughput, operability, and maintainability.
  • Contribute to systems built around replication, buffering, query-serving, and query-oriented storage patterns, including Siphon, NATS or similar messaging layers, ClickHouse-backed storage, and APIs consumed by GitLab product surfaces.
  • Drive production readiness and deployment of Data Insights Platform and Siphon across GitLab environments, with attention to rollout safety, environment-specific constraints, and long-term operational readiness.
  • Debug and improve complex distributed systems in production, including performance bottlenecks, scaling limits, failure recovery paths, and observability gaps.
  • Work closely with Infrastructure, Data, and peer Engineering teams on technical design, iteration planning, code review, and delivery to keep the platform reliable, secure, and usable by downstream consumers.
  • Work asynchronously with other team members in GitLab's all-remote environment and contribute to a culture of clear written communication, iteration, and ownership.
  • Use AI effectively in your daily workflow as a productivity multiplier for implementation, debugging, investigation, and documentation work.

Qualifications

  • Strong backend engineering experience in Go, including building and operating production services.
  • Experience designing scalable, reliable systems for high-throughput or data-intensive workloads.
  • Experience building and evolving APIs and service integrations, including gRPC or similar patterns between backend services and application layers.
  • Experience working on data platforms, data systems, event pipelines, or other foundational infrastructure.
  • Experience with ClickHouse or similar query-focused data stores used for query-heavy workloads.
  • Working knowledge of Ruby on Rails, or a clear willingness and ability to ramp up quickly.
  • Experience with infrastructure concerns such as reliability, observability, performance, and deployment across production environments.
  • Experience working across team boundaries to deliver platform capabilities used by other product and engineering teams.

Benefits

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

See also