# Senior Software Engineer , Security Platform: Authorization

**Company:** [GitLab](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/gitlab)
**Location:** Remote
**Role:** Backend Engineering
**Salary:** $139k – $235k/yr
**Experience:** 5+ years
**Skills:** Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Authorization, Role-Based Access Control, GraphQL, REST APIs, Rust, gRPC, Protocol Buffers, Cedar, Go, Zanzibar, Feature Flags, Yaml
**Posted:** 2026-09-02

> Senior Software Engineer responsible for evolving GitLab’s authorization model across its Ruby on Rails monolith and next-generation policy engine. The role requires production Rails experience, authorization expertise, security judgment, API knowledge, and strong written communication.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- Design and ship authorization changes in GitLab’s Ruby on Rails monolith, including high-volume permission checks.
- Own workstreams from problem definition through feature-flagged rollout, dual-run verification, and cleanup.
- Build and extend fine-grained permissions for tokens and roles while maintaining a coherent permission catalog.
- Extend and strengthen authorization enforcement across GraphQL and REST APIs.
- Refactor policy code so the monolith and authorization engine can evaluate it consistently without changing existing behavior.
- Improve reliability, performance, and security of authorization systems and reduce permission-model debt.
- Partner with authentication, platform, AI, and modular-service teams on authorization interface contracts.
- Document technical decisions through design documents, architecture decision records, and code reviews in an asynchronous organization.

## Requirements
- Significant experience building and operating production Ruby on Rails applications.
- Experience designing or implementing authorization systems, including role-based access control and fine-grained permissions.
- Strong security mindset, including assessment of permission bugs and blast radius.
- Experience making careful changes to large, long-lived codebases through incremental refactoring, feature flags, and behavior-preserving migrations.
- Working knowledge of GraphQL and API authorization patterns.
- Understanding of performance at scale, including the impact of repeated uncached checks.
- Strong written communication for document- and merge-request-based collaboration.

## Nice-to-haves
- Rust
- gRPC
- Protocol Buffers
- Cedar or other policy languages
- Zanzibar-style authorization systems
- Go
- Service-oriented architecture
- Transferable experience in identity, policy engines, or platform security

## Compensation and Benefits
- United States base salary range: **$139,200–$235,200 USD**.
- Benefits include flexible paid time off, team member resource groups, equity compensation and employee stock purchase plan, growth and development fund, and parental leave.

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