Staff Backend Engineer, Architecture Engineering: Nonlinear Productivity at GitLab

GitLab is seeking a Staff Backend Engineer to join the Nonlinear Productivity team in the US. This role is pivotal in defining technical standards for GitLab's agentic systems. You will act as the technical anchor, determining the definition of "proven" before any feature ships and shaping the team's technical direction from the ground up on a generalist team that currently lacks a dedicated product manager.

The Nonlinear Productivity team, internally known as "NLP," is a strategic incubation group reporting directly to AI Platform leadership under the CTO. It is split between a US group (this role) and an India-based group. Your work directly contributes to building a monetized, customer-facing GitLab offering.

What you'll do

• Set the technical direction for the team's agentic systems, covering agent orchestration and determining when a step should remain human-owned. You must defend these technical decisions through testing against real code.
• Discover and prioritize points of friction across GitLab's Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Drive the resolution using agentic or process-based fixes, moving from initial hypotheses to measured, shipped results.
• Work across any part of the GitLab codebase as required, given the generalist nature of this team which does not have service-specific boundaries.
• Apply deep distributed systems knowledge to identify scenarios where generated code appears correct but fails under concurrency, at scale, or across various deployment topologies (including self-managed, dedicated, and multi-tenant environments), and mentor others to apply this same judgment.
• Mentor senior and mid-level engineers on agent engineering practices and distributed systems principles through design reviews and pairing, focusing on raising the team's overall technical quality.
• Collaborate with the India-based team several times weekly to align on the roadmap and report the team's technical progress to stakeholders within the Chief Technology Officer's organization.
• Serve as a technical bar raiser for the team's hiring, owning the Technical Leadership interview rounds for other Staff-level candidates as the team grows.
• Own a greenfield technical foundation from day one, with scope and impact designed to evolve as the team scales.

What you'll bring

• Proven experience building reliable agentic or Large Language Model (LLM) based systems, including multi-step orchestration, tool use, guardrails, and failure recovery mechanisms.
• The capacity to work autonomously within unfamiliar codebases, driving solutions from the initial discovery phase all the way through to completion.
• Strong foundations in distributed systems and computer science, encompassing coordination, consistency, idempotency, rate limiting, and failure modes under load.
• Proficiency in Go, Rust, or Python, along with the ability to read and modify code written in the other languages.
• A demonstrable track record of delivering tangible results even when requirements are vague or incomplete, capable of decomposing complex, loosely defined problems into concrete, shippable steps.
• Experience in designing evaluation frameworks for systems where apparent correctness differs from actual correctness, and a history of elevating the quality bar for team output.
• A history of empowering and enabling teammates through design reviews, technical writing, or mentoring, and proactively collaborating with other teams to maximize impact.

About the team

The Nonlinear Productivity team (NLP) is one of GitLab's most recent strategic incubation groups, reporting to AI Platform leadership and sponsored by the CTO. The team operates with a US group and an India-based group sharing the same charter, syncing regularly on roadmap and tooling. Solutions proven internally serve as the path to creating a monetized, customer-facing GitLab product. This is an ideal role for engineers who desire technical ownership over an unwritten domain and wish to help define a brand new part of GitLab from its very first commit.

Compensation and Location

The base salary range listed is for residents of the United States only and reflects the expected rate throughout the US. The final grade and salary are determined after interviews and a comprehensive review of the applicant's education, experience, knowledge, skills, abilities, team equity, market data, and specific geographic location. The base salary range excludes bonuses, equity, or benefits. Sales roles may be eligible for incentives up to 100% of the base salary.

United States Salary Range: $152,800 - $259,200 USD.

Benefits and Perks

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

Hiring Policy

GitLab welcomes applications from candidates at various experience levels, noting that many successful hires do not meet every single criterion. We encourage all to apply. GitLab is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. All hiring practices are based solely on merit, regardless of protected characteristics. Accommodation for disabilities or special needs is available upon request during the recruiting process.