# Staff Forward Deployed Engineer

**Company:** [GitLab](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/gitlab)
**Location:** Remote
**Role:** Solutions Architecture
**Salary:** $254k – $297k/yr
**Experience:** 7+ years
**Skills:** Ruby on Rails, Go, DevSecOps, Git, CI/CD, Kubernetes, Docker, Postgres, Redis, TypeScript, Vue, ai adoption, Agentic Workflows
**Posted:** 2026-07-20

> Staff Forward Deployed Engineer driving strategic customer outcomes through direct product contributions, complex problem diagnosis, and AI adoption for GitLab Duo Agent Platform. Requires Staff-level engineering experience with Ruby/Rails or Go, DevSecOps expertise, and ability to influence cross-functional teams and senior stakeholders.

## Job Description

## Core Responsibilities

### Product Contribution
- Contribute production-quality code to GitLab’s product and adjacent systems.
- Develop bug fixes, features, integrations, tooling, or performance improvements where strategic customer outcomes require direct engineering contribution.
- Work within GitLab’s normal product and engineering processes, including issue discovery, MR creation, testing, review, documentation, and maintainability.
- Influence Product and Engineering to ensure customer-driven solutions align with long-term product direction and do not become one-off customizations.
- Translate field-discovered blockers into durable product improvements, reference architectures, documentation, or repeatable implementation patterns.

### Strategic Technical Stewardship
- Engage with strategically important customers when adoption, retention, executive confidence, or public trust is materially at risk.
- Diagnose complex technical problems across GitLab product behavior, customer architecture, Git internals, CI/CD workflows, API usage, observability, infrastructure, networking, and cloud environments.
- Coordinate across Product, Engineering, SRE, Support, SA, CSA, CSM, PS, and customer technical teams to drive end-to-end resolution.
- Provide data-driven, trace-level, systems-level recommendations for improving GitLab usage, workflows, automation, and architecture.
- Ensure FDE involvement creates durable outcomes rather than permanent dependency.

### AI Adoption and Agentic SDLC
- Drive adoption of GitLab Duo Agent Platform with strategic customers in governed, measurable, production-oriented ways.
- Identify and resolve blockers to AI adoption, including governance, usage controls, auditability, security, compliance, operating model, workflow design, and integration gaps.
- Develop customer-safe adoption patterns for agentic SDLC, AI-assisted development, intent-based review, AI governance, and human-in-the-loop software delivery.
- Partner with Product, Engineering, Field, and Customer Success to translate AI adoption learning into reusable guidance and product improvements.

### Thought Leadership
- Lead GitLab in creating industry-shaping technical narratives grounded in real customer experience and product reality.
- Contribute to Well Architected Frameworks, whitepapers, webinars, reference architectures, technical strategy memos, and adoption frameworks.
- Steward ideas from discovery through formulation, validation, amplification, and normalization across the company.
- Partner with SA, CSA, Product, Engineering, Marketing, PMM, CSM, Support, and executive stakeholders to make thought leadership a company capability rather than an isolated team activity.

## Required Qualifications
- Staff-level experience building, operating, or improving complex production software systems.
- Demonstrated ability to contribute to large, mature product codebases with high standards for testing, maintainability, performance, and security.
- Strong Ruby/Rails or Go experience, with ability to contribute directly to GitLab’s product contribution surface.
- Experience diagnosing complex system behavior across application code, data stores, infrastructure, observability, networking, APIs, and customer usage patterns.
- Deep understanding of modern DevSecOps workflows, including Git, merge requests, CI/CD, security controls, compliance needs, and enterprise software delivery.
- Experience working with strategic customers or senior technical stakeholders in ambiguous, high-impact situations.
- Ability to coordinate across Product, Engineering, Support, SRE, SA, CSA, CSM, Professional Services, and customer teams without formal authority.
- Strong written communication skills, including the ability to produce technical narratives, architecture guidance, and reusable field/product assets.
- Demonstrated judgment in distinguishing reusable product/platform work from customer-specific customization.

## Strongly Preferred Qualifications
- Direct experience with GitLab as a platform, including GitLab.com, Dedicated, or self-managed deployments.
- Production experience with Ruby on Rails, Go, PostgreSQL, Redis, Sidekiq, Vue, TypeScript, Kubernetes, Docker, Linux, and observability tooling.
- Deep familiarity with Git internals, repository performance, large-scale Git usage patterns, or CI runner behavior.
- Experience with AI-assisted software development, agentic workflows, AI governance, model evaluation, context management, prompt/workflow design, or AI adoption in regulated enterprise environments.
- Experience creating thought-leadership artifacts such as whitepapers.

## Similar roles

- [Staff Forward Deployed AI Engineer, Enterprise](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/f07c5906-7dbd-4943-8247-f8e3a144bf2e) - Scale AI - San Francisco, CA - $252k – $315k/yr
- [Staff/Senior Staff Business Enablement Architect](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/41a81cb2-9d95-46ec-92ff-dbb29e0e0642) - Zoox - Foster City, CA - $252k – $303k/yr
- [Staff Solutions Architect, Growth](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/4595e595-3d0d-499f-bcc3-485b7846a635) - Temporal - Remote - $250k – $300k/yr
- [Staff Solutions Architect](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/54605277-6829-4ea3-8f0f-5ed14457f984) - Temporal - Remote - $250k – $300k/yr
- [Staff Solutions Architect, Enterprise](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/dbedb0b8-ac38-403b-ab99-45bad95bfc0c) - Temporal - Remote - $250k – $300k/yr

**Apply:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/f695df47-5029-467b-8187-05fb596fad7f
**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/f695df47-5029-467b-8187-05fb596fad7f