An Overview of This Role

As a Backend Engineer on the GitLab Delivery: Operate team, you’ll build and maintain the infrastructure, automation, and tooling that power GitLab deployments for self-managed customers. You'll work across key technologies—Omnibus, Helm Charts, the GitLab Environment Toolkit (GET), and the GitLab Operator—to ensure GitLab is easy to deploy, secure, and scalable in a wide range of environments.

The Operate team acts as a vital link between GitLab engineering and our self-managed users. You’ll contribute to production-grade deployment tools and collaborate across engineering to ensure GitLab features are consistently delivered, integrated, and operable on all supported platforms.

Some examples of our projects:

Distribution Primary Projects Working with the community Distribution Team Demo What you’ll do Omnibus GitLab: Maintain and evolve the GitLab Omnibus package to ensure seamless integration of all GitLab components and reliable deployment in diverse self-managed environments. Kubernetes Charts: Advance GitLab Helm Charts to support scalable, secure, and production-grade deployments on Kubernetes platforms. GitLab Environment Toolkit (GET): Improve and support GET to streamline deployment of validated reference architectures for enterprise and internal use cases. GitLab Operator: Develop and maintain the GitLab Operator to enable Kubernetes-native lifecycle automation and day-2 operations for GitLab deployments. Installation and Upgrade Experience: Deliver a consistent, efficient, and user-friendly experience across installation, upgrade, and operational workflows. Security Collaboration: Collaborate with Security teams to proactively remediate vulnerabilities and ensure deployment tooling follows secure-by-default practices. Automation & CI/CD: Design and maintain robust CI/CD pipelines to validate and continuously test deployment tooling across all supported delivery mechanisms. Cross-Team Integration: Work closely with engineers, SREs, release managers, and developers to ensure smooth integration of features into GitLab’s deployment ecosystem. Documentation & Enablement: Create and maintain clear, actionable documentation to empower self-managed users with confident, independent deployments. Reliability: Ensure all deployment methods meet GitLab’s standards for uptime, performance, and operational excellence through rigorous testing and validation. What you’ll bring Hands-on experience with Kubernetes and Helm in production environments Proficiency in Ruby or Golang (Go), and strong Bash scripting Production experience managing infrastructure at scale using orchestration tools such as Terraform, Ansible, or Chef in multi-cloud environments (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure) Solid understanding of PostgreSQL or similar database systems Knowledge of secure, scalable deployment strategies Experience contributing to large codebases and distributed teams Ability to create clear, technical documentation for end users Experience with major cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure) Familiarity with observability tools like Prometheus and Grafana About the Team

The Operate team is part of GitLab Delivery and focuses on building and maintaining tooling to deploy GitLab in self-managed environments. We support GitLab Omnibus, Helm Charts, GET, and the GitLab Operator—ensuring that GitLab is deployable, secure, and reliable across enterprise-scale infrastructure. We partner across engineering to bring new features to self-managed customers with minimal friction and maximum confidence.

How GitLab will support you Benefits to support your health, finances, and well-being All remote, asynchronous work environment Flexible Paid Time Off Team Member Resource Groups Equity Compensation & Employee Stock Purchase Plan Growth and development budget  Parental leave  Home office support

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 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.

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