An overview of this role

As a Senior Backend Engineer on the Auth Infrastructure team at GitLab, you'll help build the critical infrastructure layer that powers GitLab's authentication and authorization systems at scale. This role focuses on implementing and deploying the foundational components that enable secure, performant, and reliable identity services across all GitLab deployment models while supporting our transition to a zero-trust architecture.

You'll collaborate closely with the Authentication and Authorization teams to ensure the infrastructure layer can support their requirements, while working with Platform and Infrastructure teams to ensure seamless integration across GitLab's architecture.

This is a unique opportunity to solve authentication infrastructure challenges at global scale while enabling GitLab's evolution toward microservices and zero-trust security.

What you'll do

• Design and implement components of GitLab's authentication infrastructure layer, including Envoy proxy configuration, token services, and policy decision infrastructure

• Develop solutions for critical infrastructure challenges including bi-directional gRPC tunnels, mTLS implementation, and service mesh architecture

• Build infrastructure that supports multiple deployment models: GitLab.com (millions of users), self-managed, Dedicated, and air-gapped environments

• Optimize performance for authentication decisions at scale

• Implement infrastructure monitoring, observability, and debugging capabilities for distributed authentication systems

• Contribute to the overall direction of the team and play a direct part in driving future roadmap direction of a secure and scalable authentication solution for GitLab

• Help to define and improve our internal standards for style, maintainability, and best practices for high-scale distributed systems

• Represent GitLab and its values in public communication around broader initiatives, specific projects, and community contributions

What you'll bring

• Strong experience with Go and/or Rust for building high-performance infrastructure services

• Experience with proxy technologies (Envoy, Traefik, HAProxy, nginx) and edge routing

• Familiarity with DB technologies and storage, such as RDS, Google Spanner, Postgres or similar

• Experience with service mesh architectures, mTLS, and zero-trust networking

• Knowledge of gRPC, REST APIs, and service-to-service communication patterns

• Understanding of token systems (JWT, Macaroons), cryptographic signing, and key management

• Experience with Kubernetes, container orchestration, and cloud-native deployment patterns

• Strong debugging and performance optimization skills for distributed systems

• Proficiency in the English language, both written and verbal, sufficient for success in a remote and largely asynchronous work environment

• Demonstrated capacity to clearly and concisely communicate complex problems and solutions

• Comfort working in a highly agile, intensely iterative software development process

• Positive and solution-oriented mindset

• Experience owning a project from concept to production, including proposal, discussion, and execution

• Self-motivated and self-managing, with strong organizational skills

About the team:

Our mission is to empower GitLab system administrators with the toolkit they need to create their desired balance of security and accessibility for their GitLab experience. 

Authentication is the first impression any new customer has when they configure their shiny new GitLab instance, and we aim to make it as seamless as possible: from that moment of first logging in, to onboarding users, to managing the basic security rules for their instance in a secure, flexible and scalable manner.