Intermediate Backend Engineer (Ruby on Rails), Plan: Knowledge

An overview of this role

As an Intermediate Backend Engineer on the Plan: Knowledge group, you’ll help turn GitLab from a “useful documentation tool” into a truly collaborative knowledge solution that lives right next to where teams plan, code, and deploy. You’ll focus on making our Ruby on Rails backend solid, scalable, and a pleasure to build on, powering products like Wiki, Pages, Markdown, text editors, and the GitLab Query Language (GLQL). You’ll spend most of your time in Rails and GraphQL, collaborating closely with frontend engineers, Product, UX, and Security to design APIs that are easy to use, build performant query engines, improve reliability and test coverage, and support features that work well for both technical and non-technical users in a highly async, all-remote environment.

Some examples of our projects:

• Building fast, flexible query engines that make complex knowledge easy to find and use through GLQL
• Designing and scaling APIs that support rich text and Markdown collaboration for 100,000+ organizations

What you’ll do

• Develop and maintain backend services in Ruby on Rails that power Wiki, Pages, Markdown, text editors, and GitLab Query Language (GLQL) features.
• Design, implement, and evolve GraphQL APIs that are intuitive for frontend engineers to consume and support scalable, performant user experiences.
• Improve reliability and performance across the stack by profiling, diagnosing, and resolving bottlenecks in application code, PostgreSQL queries, Redis usage, and background jobs.
• Write automated tests with RSpec and contribute to improving test coverage, helping prevent regressions and ensuring safe, incremental changes.
• Collaborate closely with frontend engineers, Product, UX, and Security to break down large projects into small, shippable iterations and deliver them end to end.
• Review merge requests, give and receive constructive feedback, and champion code quality, maintainability, and consistency across the codebase.
• Contribute to technical documentation so that features, systems, and decisions are clearly documented for both technical and non-technical GitLab team members.
• Investigate and debug production issues, participate in blameless incident reviews, and implement follow-up improvements that strengthen system resilience.

What you’ll bring

• Proficiency in Ruby on Rails and core backend components such as ActiveRecord, Redis, and HAML.
• Experience designing, implementing, and maintaining APIs, ideally including GraphQL, with attention to usability and clarity for frontend teams.
• Practical experience with relational databases like PostgreSQL, including querying, modeling, and basic tuning.
• Habit of writing automated tests with tools like RSpec and building reliable, maintainable code with strong attention to performance and scalability.
• Experience using Git in a professional setting, contributing via merge requests, and participating in thoughtful code review.
• Ability to investigate, diagnose, and prevent performance and reliability issues in production systems.
• Comfort working in an iterative, highly collaborative environment with cross-functional partners such as Product Management, UX, and Security.
• Clear and concise communication skills, with the ability to break down complex problems into small, shippable iterations and openness to learning and transferable experience from related technologies or domains.

About the team

The Plan: Knowledge group is responsible for knowledge management at GitLab, owning key product areas like Wiki, Pages, Markdown, Text Editors, and GitLab Query Language (GLQL) that keep information flowing instead of trapped in silos. We currently include 5 engineers supported by a Product Manager, Engineering Manager, Product Designer, and Technical Writer, collaborating asynchronously across regions and working closely with the broader Plan Stage to build a collaborative solution that serves both technical and non-technical users in the same place where they plan, code, and deploy. We are focused on evolving GitLab from a useful documentation tool into a robust knowledge platform, tackling challenges like scalable query engines, rich editing experiences, and AI-powered capabilities. For more on our direction, see Plan: Knowledge Direction Page.