Staff Backend Engineer - Database Change Management

GitLab is hiring a Staff Backend Engineer - Database Change Management in Bangalore.

GitLab is the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps. GitLab enables organizations to increase developer productivity, improve operational efficiency, reduce security and compliance risk, and accelerate digital transformation. More than 50 million registered users and more than 50% of the Fortune 100* trust GitLab to ship better, more secure software faster. The same principles built into our products are reflected in how our team works: we embrace AI as a core productivity multiplier, with all team members expected to incorporate AI into their daily workflows to drive efficiency, in

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and delivery of the migration validation and test framework from initial approach through production use.

• Contribute to a dependency graph migration system that supports safe ordering, parallel execution, and three-phase, low-downtime upgrades.

• Mentor intermediate engineers through pairing, code review, and design feedback.

• Make and document technical decisions asynchronously so team members can build on them across time zones.

• Review schema migrations from engineers across GitLab for safety, backward compatibility, and reliability.

• Collaborate with Distribution, Quality Assurance, Database Architecture, Database Automation, and database framework teams to support GitLab.com and self-managed deployment methods.

• At Staff level, author and defend architecture proposals and represent the team in technical reviews across GitLab.

What you’ll bring

• Deep experience with Ruby on Rails in large production codebases, including Active Record migration internals, or comparable depth in another framework's migration system, such as Django or Ecto.

• Production PostgreSQL experience, including schema changes on large tables, locking behavior, and data definition language failure modes under load.

• A track record of leading delivery of a system from design through implementation and adoption.

• Experience mentoring engineers through pairing, code review, and technical feedback.

• Strong written communication and the ability to make progress independently in an asynchronous, distributed environment.

• Sound judgment when balancing reliability, safety, backward compatibility, and delivery needs.

• An interest in serving as a senior technical presence for an India-based engineering group while collaborating across regions.

About GitLab

We’re working on the largest change to GitLab's migration system in its history, with a focus on making upgrades safer and easier for customers, including the roughly one-third of self-managed customers who are two or more required upgrade stops behind. How GitLab Supports Full-Time Employees