Intermediate Backend Engineer (Ruby) - Switchboard

As a backend engineer joining our GitLab Dedicated Group, you'll collaborate with our talented team to build Switchboard, an innovative customer portal that supports our GitLab Dedicated single-tenant SaaS offering. Switchboard serves both our valued Dedicated customers and internal GitLab teams, including our SREs. The contributions you make will create meaningful impact and reach millions of users worldwide. Learn more about the Switchboard Team here.

In this role, you'll develop backend functionality while following established best practices and GitLab guidelines. You'll work closely with frontend engineers, SREs, product managers, engineering managers, and product designers to enhance and expand the Switchboard application.

At GitLab, we embrace open source principles wholeheartedly. Our complete handbook is accessible online, allowing you to explore details about upcoming releases and understand the product vision you'll help bring to life.

What You'll Do

• Build impactful features: Develop secure, well-tested, and performant improvements to the Switchboard product

• Collaborate cross-functionally: Partner with Product Management and diverse stakeholders (Frontend, SRE, and others) to iterate on innovative features within the GitLab ecosystem

• Write exceptional code: Create code that meets our high standards for style, maintainability, and best practices in large-scale web environments. Champion these standards through thoughtful code review

• Drive independent success: Confidently deliver features and improvements with growing autonomy, while collaborating on larger initiatives

• Enhance user experience: Improve the overall product experience by elevating backend feature quality both within your group and across teams

• Identify opportunities: Recognize areas for improvement throughout the codebase and contribute to meaningful enhancements

• Foster learning: Share knowledge, learn from others, and teach fellow engineers. Every team member brings valuable perspectives regardless of their industry experience

• Resolve critical issues: Address prioritized items from our issue tracker, including bugs with severity and priority labels

• Embrace our workflow: Contribute to and follow our established processes alongside Switchboard Engineers and the broader GitLab community

What You'll Bring

• Technical expertise: Professional experience with Ruby on Rails

• Platform experience: Background working with platforms or complex applications (large-scale experience is welcomed)

• Deployment knowledge: Familiarity with building and deploying software using CI/CD or internal tooling

• Systems thinking: Understanding of distributed, scalable, and reliable systems

• Modern DevOps: Experience with contemporary DevOps platforms (GitLab experience is a plus)

• Communication skills: Strong English language proficiency for success in our remote, asynchronous environment

• Clear communication: Ability to articulate complex technical, architectural, and organizational challenges while proposing comprehensive solutions

• Performance focus: Experience identifying, diagnosing, and preventing performance and optimization issues

• Agile comfort: Enthusiasm for highly agile, iterative software development processes

• Positive mindset: Solution-oriented approach to challenges

• Collaborative spirit: Natural inclination toward communication, inclusion, and transparency

• Self-direction: Self-motivated with excellent organizational abilities

• Values alignment: Commitment to our company values and working in accordance with them

• Remote readiness: Ability to flourish in a fully remote organization

Nice to Have

• Vue.js experience

• Familiarity with GitLab as a user or contributor

• Product company background

• Remote team collaboration experience

• Enterprise software company experience

• Developer platform/tool industry knowledge

• Global or multicultural team experience

Important note: We understand that everyone's journey is unique, and we encourage you to apply even if you don't meet every single requirement listed above. We believe diverse perspectives and experiences strengthen our team.

About Our Team

You'll join a dynamic technical team that's newly formed within a visible and growing group at GitLab. You'll have opportunities to learn from experienced engineers while also shaping the future direction of the Switchboard application. This presents an exciting opportunity for a Backend Engineer to contribute to and help build this innovative application.  Learn more about the Switchboard Team here.