GitLab is an open-core software company that develops the most comprehensive
AI-powered DevSecOps Platform
[https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/devops-platform], used by more than 100,000
organizations. Our mission [https://about.gitlab.com/company/mission] is to
enable everyone to contribute to and co-create the software that powers our
world. When everyone can contribute, consumers become contributors,
significantly accelerating human progress. Our platform unites teams and
organizations, breaking down barriers and redefining what's possible in software
development. Thanks to products like Duo Enterprise
[https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-duo/] and Duo Agent Platform
[https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-duo-agent-platform-what-is-next-for-intelligent-devsecops/],
customers get AI benefits at every stage of the SDLC.
The same principles built into our products are reflected in how our team works:
we embrace AI as a core productivity multiplier, with all team members expected
to incorporate AI into their daily workflows to drive efficiency, innovation,
and impact. GitLab is where careers accelerate, innovation flourishes, and every
voice is valued. Our high-performance culture is driven by our values
[https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/] and continuous knowledge
exchange, enabling our team members to reach their full potential while
collaborating with industry leaders to solve complex problems. Co-create the
future with us [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuZIb5zszQI] as we build
technology that transforms how the world develops software.
AN OVERVIEW OF THIS ROLE
You will join our Database Operations team as an Intermediate Site Reliability
Engineer, keeping GitLab.com—one of the largest single-tenancy open source SaaS
platforms on the internet—running smoothly and reliably. In this role, you'll
take ownership of the PostgreSQL database infrastructure that powers millions of
developers worldwide, automating operational tasks, improving system performance
and reliability, and designing solutions that scale to support hundreds of
thousands of concurrent users. You'll work at a unique scale where your
decisions directly impact the experience of our customers and the feedback you
generate informs product development across GitLab. Over your first year, you'll
establish expertise in a core area of database operations, mentor junior team
members, and drive projects that deliver measurable improvements to system
efficiency and reliability.
You bring both pragmatic operational discipline and software craftsmanship to
this role. You're not just responding to incidents—you're designing systems and
building automation that prevent them. You'll partner with engineering teams
across GitLab to review database changes, optimize performance, and help others
succeed through self-service tooling and knowledge sharing. This is hands-on
infrastructure work at scale, where your contributions directly shape how
reliably and securely GitLab serves the entire platform.
Some examples of projects you could work on:
- Design and implement mature automation for database provisioning,
replication, and backup testing using tools like Terraform and Ansible.
- Develop self-service tools and dashboards that empower other teams to manage
their own database resources.
- Lead capacity planning and scalability initiatives to ensure GitLab.com
continues growing reliably.
- Participate in production incident response and help implement systemic
improvements to prevent recurrence.
WHAT YOU’LL DO
- Automate operational tasks across all environments—from package updates and
configuration changes to provisioning of user-facing services—so manual
effort becomes the exception, not the rule.
- Design and maintain PostgreSQL database infrastructure components that allow
GitLab.com to scale reliably while supporting hundreds of thousands of
concurrent users.
- Respond to production incidents and platform emergencies, working with peer
SREs to diagnose and resolve database-related issues quickly and thoroughly.
- Build observability systems that monitor database health, predict capacity
needs based on usage patterns, and alert on symptoms rather than outages.
- Develop and ship database performance solutions in collaboration with product
and engineering teams, including query optimization, migration reviews, and
infrastructure recommendations.
- Create self-service tools and automation—using Terraform, Ansible, Chef, and
GitLab ChatOps—that empower engineering teams to manage their own database
interactions safely.
- Document decisions, learnings, and operational procedures so that knowledge
becomes repeatable actions and eventually becomes automation.
- Participate in regularly scheduled on-call rotations to ensure GitLab.com
remains operational during off-hours and weekends when necessary.
WHAT YOU’LL BRING
- Hands-on experience running PostgreSQL in high-growth, large production
environments, including both self-managed infrastructure and
database-as-a-service platforms.
- Expertise with infrastructure automation and configuration management tools
such as Ansible, Terraform, Chef, or Puppet to automate operational tasks and
drive system reliability.
- Solid understanding of SQL, PL/pgSQL, data modeling, and data structure
design; ability to analyze PostgreSQL internals to troubleshoot and optimize
systems.
- Experience working in large-scale, distributed SaaS production environments
where you've managed reliability, performance, and scalability challenges at
significant scale.
- Strong written communication skills and commitment to documentation; you
thrive in remote, asynchronous environments and share knowledge effectively
across your team.
- Proactive, hands-on approach where you identify issues, take ownership of
solutions, and contribute improvements to infrastructure and code.
- Capability to mentor junior team members and develop deep expertise in your
domain areas, then share that knowledge to help others grow.
- Backend engineering experience with languages such as Ruby or Go, and/or
familiarity with OLAP databases like Clickhouse.
ABOUT THE TEAM
We are responsible for building, running, and evolving the entire lifecycle of
the PostgreSQL database engine that powers GitLab.com. You’ll be part of our
team focused on owning the reliability, scalability, performance, and security
of our database infrastructure and supporting services. GitLab.com is one of the
largest single-tenancy open source SaaS sites on the internet, which means your
work directly impacts hundreds of thousands of concurrent users worldwide. We
operate in a fully distributed, asynchronous environment across multiple
regions, collaborating on everything from database automation and infrastructure
design to incident response and capacity planning. You’ll be solving novel
challenges at scale—from implementing observability stacks that predict capacity
needs to designing the infrastructure components that allow GitLab to scale
reliably. We continuously seek to reduce complexity and improve efficiency by
leveraging cloud vendor managed products and services where appropriate,
ensuring GitLab.com remains a best-in-class production environment. For more on
how we operate, see Database Operations Team Handbook Page
[https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ops/db-ops].
HOW GITLAB WILL SUPPORT YOU
Please note that we welcome interest from candidates with varying levels of
experience; many successful candidates do not meet every single requirement.
Additionally, studies have shown that people from underrepresented groups
[https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/inclusion/#examples-of-select-underrepresented-groups]
are less likely to apply to a job unless they meet every single qualification.
If you're excited about this role, please apply and allow our recruiters to
assess your application.
Country Hiring Guidelines: GitLab hires new team members in countries around the
world. All of our roles are remote, however some roles may carry specific
location-based eligibility requirements. Our Talent Acquisition team can help
answer any questions about location after starting the recruiting process.
Privacy Policy: Please review our Recruitment Privacy Policy.
[https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/hiring/candidate-faq/recruitment-privacy-policy/]
Your privacy is important to us.
GitLab is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative
action employer. GitLab’s policies and practices relating to recruitment,
employment, career development and advancement, promotion, and retirement are
based solely on merit, regardless of race, color, religion, ancestry, sex
(including pregnancy, lactation, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender
expression), national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, mental or
physical disability, genetic information (including family medical history),
discharge status from the military, protected veteran status (which includes
disabled veterans, recently separated veterans, active duty wartime or campaign
badge veterans, and Armed Forces service medal veterans), or any other basis
protected by law. GitLab will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on
any of these characteristics. See also GitLab’s EEO Policy
[https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-policies/inc-usa/#equal-employment-opportunity-policy] and EEO
is the Law
[https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/labor-and-employment-notices/#eeoc-us-equal-employment-opportunity-commission-notices].
If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation
[https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-policies/inc-usa/#reasonable-accommodation],
please let us know during the recruiting process
[https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/hiring/interviewing/#adjustments-to-our-interview-process].
