Staff Backend Engineer, Performance Enablement

GitLab is seeking a Staff Backend Engineer for its Performance Enablement group. As a Staff Backend Engineer, you will define and build the self-serve platform that lets GitLab engineering teams own their performance. You will give internal teams the tooling and guidance to run performance tests, analyze results, track trends, and meet their own performance requirements throughout the development lifecycle.

Responsibilities:

• Define the team's technical vision and multi-quarter roadmap with the Engineering Manager, identify opportunities for impact across R&D, and advocate for technical priorities with stakeholders.
• Design and build reusable platform capabilities for performance testing, analysis, reporting, and trend visibility, solving complex technical problems and shipping large capabilities with minimal guidance.
• Turn lessons from early team engagements into reusable capabilities, documentation, and onboarding, measured by each new team needing less hands-on support than the last until teams can adopt the platform and manage their performance independently.
• Coordinate with peer teams across Developer Experience, Infrastructure Platforms, and product groups to align priorities and timing.
• Lead AI-first development practices in how we build and what we ship, including AI skills and agent-assisted performance workflows.
• Mentor engineers in performance engineering, platform design, and technical decision-making.
• Serve as a performance expert for other teams and provide technical guidance on initiatives spanning multiple groups.
• Take part in on-call or operational support where your team's ownership model requires it.

Requirements:

• Staff-level backend or platform engineering experience, including setting technical direction across a team and the teams around it.
• A track record of building and operating performance testing and analysis systems, with an understanding of where bottlenecks appear and how to find them.
• Experience leading or anchoring a performance enablement or platform function and achieving measurable adoption of internal tooling by influencing engineers and leaders who don't report to you.
• Experience defining and delivering a multi-quarter technical strategy or roadmap with engineering leadership.
• An AI-first development mindset demonstrated across the software lifecycle, including shaping how a team uses AI.
• Hands-on experience with load and performance testing tools such as k6 or equivalent, Kubernetes, and Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, or similar cloud infrastructure.
• Clear written, asynchronous communication, including explaining performance trade-offs to engineers and leadership.

Benefits:

• Benefits to support your health, finances, and well-being
• Flexible Paid Time Off
• Team Member Resource Groups
• Equity Compensation & Employee Stock Purchase Plan
• Growth and Development Fund
• Parental Leave