# Senior Backend Engineer, Database Excellence

**Company:** [GitLab](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/gitlab)
**Location:** Remote
**Role:** Backend Engineering
**Experience:** 5+ years
**Skills:** Postgres, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, SQL, Database Migration, High Availability, Automatic Failover, Data Retention, Data Archiving, Data Partitioning, Static Analysis, Performance Optimization, Data Lifecycle Management, GitLab
**Posted:** 2026-09-09

> Senior backend engineer building PostgreSQL and Ruby frameworks, guardrails, and tooling for data retention, lifecycle management, scalability, and database health across GitLab’s SaaS and self-managed deployments.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- Develop backend features and data frameworks that support safe, efficient work with data at scale across SaaS and self-managed deployments.
- Design and build data retention and lifecycle-management frameworks, including retention-policy enforcement, bulk data-removal tooling, and automated identification of tables requiring retention policies.
- Build shift-left guardrails, including static-analysis checks and schema-change-time enforcement, to prevent unsustainable data growth before production.
- Design, build, and maintain SQL traffic replay and background-operations tooling to identify scalability and performance issues.
- Improve database performance, scalability, data health, soft-delete strategies, and database migration testing.
- Review database-related changes for data integrity, safety, and performance.
- Collaborate with product management, UX, frontend, infrastructure, software delivery, and analytics teams.
- Document database best practices, anti-patterns, and data-architecture guidance.
- Participate in a Tier 2 database on-call rotation during the applicable time zone.

## Requirements
- Professional software engineering experience with PostgreSQL in large, complex production environments.
- Experience with high-availability solutions, automatic failover, and zero-downtime data migrations.
- Experience managing large or rapidly growing datasets using retention, archiving, partitioning, or lifecycle-management approaches.
- Proficiency with Ruby on Rails or another Ruby framework, including backend feature design, implementation, and review.
- Ability to reason about software design, algorithms, and system-level performance trade-offs.
- Strong written communication and the ability to work asynchronously in a distributed team.
- Self-directed work style, strong organizational skills, and the ability to manage priorities independently.
- Openness to learning and applying new tools and approaches, including transferable experience from data, infrastructure, or developer-tooling domains.

## Benefits
- Flexible paid time off.
- Team member resource groups.
- Equity compensation and employee stock purchase plan.
- Growth and development fund.
- Parental leave.

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