Staff Backend Engineer, AI Engineering: Code Creation (Ruby and Python)

Remote

GitLab is an open-core software company that develops the most comprehensive AI-powered DevSecOps Platform, used by more than 100,000 organizations. Our 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 and Duo Agent Platform, 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 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 as we build technology that transforms how the world develops software.

 

An overview of this role

The Create: Code Creation team builds and maintains GitLab's AI-powered code development tools that help developers write, review, and understand code more effectively. Our team has successfully launched multiple foundational AI capabilities including Code Suggestions (AI-assisted code completions in multiple IDEs), Duo Code Review (automated AI-powered code review), and the Knowledge Graph (intelligent code indexing and context system). We're now expanding and deepening these capabilities across GitLab Duo's AI suite.

As a Staff Engineer, you'll provide technical leadership for sophisticated systems that power our AI-driven code creation features. You'll architect solutions that analyze codebases to provide relevant context to large language models, design systems that coordinate multiple AI agents and tools, and help shape the technical direction of GitLab's AI initiatives. You'll work across multiple services and technologies including our main Rails application, AI Gateway (Python), Knowledge Graph (Rust), and Language Server (TypeScript), ensuring our solutions maintain high performance and reliability for our global user base.

 

What you’ll do

  • Architect and lead the implementation of complex AI-powered coding assistance systems spanning multiple services and technologies (Ruby/Rails, Python, Rust, TypeScript) to meet defined availability, reliability, and response time targets.
  • Drive technical strategy and innovation for AI coding tools, including code suggestions, code review, and code generation capabilities, by experimenting with new approaches to AI-powered development.
  • Design and build scalable, high-performance APIs and services that power IDE extensions and AI-assisted development workflows, ensuring predictable performance and error rates under high request volumes.
  • Lead initiatives to improve the quality, relevance, and responsiveness of AI-generated code suggestions and reviews, measured through metrics such as suggestion acceptance rate, response latency, and user satisfaction.
  • Evaluate and integrate emerging AI/ML models and technologies to enhance our coding assistance capabilities, driving measurable gains in suggestion accuracy, language coverage, and reduction of manual review time.
  • Provide technical mentorship and guidance to engineers across the Code Creation team, collaborate with other teams, and influence product and engineering decisions by proposing thorough, iterative solutions to complex technical and architectural challenges.
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams across product, engineering, marketing, and more to plan, launch, and iterate on AI-powered development features that drive customer adoption and retention.
  • Represent the team in technical discussions with customers and stakeholders about AI-powered development capabilities to gather feedback and translate it into roadmap priorities and measurable improvements in AI feature usage and satisfaction.

 

What you’ll bring

  • Professional experience building and scaling production web applications and services using Ruby on Rails and Python (or similar frameworks) in a production environment.
  • Ability to architect and lead complex technical projects from concept to production, driving technical decisions, influencing engineering strategy, and mentoring engineers across teams.
  • Hands-on experience with AI/ML technologies, including integrating large language models and applying prompt engineering techniques to real-world developer workflows.
  • Experience designing, building, and optimizing distributed systems and data stores for high-volume workloads, with a focus on performance, reliability, observability, and scalability.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills for collaborating in a remote, globally distributed environment, and ability to work effectively across different technology stacks while quickly learning new languages and frameworks.
  • Familiarity with one or more of the following: Rust and/or TypeScript; developer tools, IDEs, or language servers; graph databases or knowledge graph systems; AI agent or multi-agent architectures; code analysis tools such as static analyzers or abstract syntax trees; and contributions to open source projects, particularly in the AI or developer tools space.

About the team

The Code Creation team is at the forefront of GitLab's AI initiatives, focusing on helping developers create and maintain code more efficiently. We've successfully launched our Code Suggestions feature and are now working on expanding capabilities through better context awareness, AI-powered code review, knowledge graphs, and intelligent agent coordination across GitLab's product suite.

Our team collaborates globally across multiple time zones, working with various groups across engineering. We maintain a balance between shipping innovative new features and ensuring high performance and reliability for our global user base. The AI landscape is rapidly evolving, and our team adapts quickly to new developments and opportunities.

You can learn more about our team's direction and goals in our public handbook.

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 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. 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 and EEO is the Law. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know during the recruiting process.

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