Backend Engineer, AI Engineering: Duo Chat

Summary

GitLab is an intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps that helps organizations improve developer productivity, operational efficiency, security, compliance, and digital transformation. The Backend Engineer will build and maintain the Python-based agentic runtime behind GitLab Duo Chat, integrate Chat capabilities with the GitLab Rails monolith, and collaborate on secure, performant AI-powered features.

Responsibilities

• Develop secure, well-tested, and performant features and improvements for GitLab Duo Chat
• Implement and extend agentic flows in Python using LangGraph, registered through the Flow Registry and served by the Duo Workflow Service
• Integrate Chat capabilities with the GitLab Rails monolith, including its GraphQL application programming interface (API)
• Write maintainable code that meets our internal standards for a high-scale environment, including tests with every merge request
• Review code within our Code Review Guidelines and respond promptly to contributions from people who don't work for GitLab
• Identify technical debt and propose and implement solutions that improve the team's efficiency
• Collaborate with Product Management, User Experience, and Frontend team members to improve product quality, security, and performance
• Participate in Tier 2 or Tier 3 weekday, weekend, and occasional night on-call rotations to help troubleshoot product operations, security operations, and urgent engineering issues

Skills

• Professional experience with Python, including building and testing production services
• Working proficiency with Ruby on Rails, or a willingness to learn it, since a meaningful part of Chat lives in the GitLab monolith
• Exposure to, or strong interest in, building on top of large language models, including prompting, tool or function calling, evaluation, and the failure modes of non-deterministic systems
• Experience designing and building APIs, including diagnosing and optimizing performance issues, and comfort working with well-documented third-party services
• A security-minded development approach that applies secure coding guidelines early in the development process
• Clear and concise written communication about technical problems and iterative solutions, which is essential in a remote, largely asynchronous environment
• Manage work independently, organize priorities, and ask for help when an issue is taking longer than expected
• Demonstrate GitLab's values by collaborating effectively in a fully remote, intensely iterative environment
• Experience with LangGraph, LangChain, or a comparable agent orchestration framework
• Experience with GraphQL and RSpec
• Experience with the GitLab product as a user or contributor
• Experience working on a remote, globally distributed team

Qualifications

Must Haves

• Professional experience with Python, including building and testing production services
• Working proficiency with Ruby on Rails, or a willingness to learn it, since a meaningful part of Chat lives in the GitLab monolith
• Exposure to, or strong interest in, building on top of large language models, including prompting, tool or function calling, evaluation, and the failure modes of non-deterministic systems
• Experience designing and building APIs, including diagnosing and optimizing performance issues, and comfort working with well-documented third-party services
• A security-minded development approach that applies secure coding guidelines early in the development process
• Clear and concise written communication about technical problems and iterative solutions, which is essential in a remote, largely asynchronous environment
• Manage work independently, organize priorities, and ask for help when an issue is taking longer than expected
• Demonstrate GitLab's values by collaborating effectively in a fully remote, intensely iterative environment
• Experience with LangGraph, LangChain, or a comparable agent orchestration framework
• Experience with GraphQL and RSpec
• Experience with the GitLab product as a user or contributor
• Experience working on a remote, globally distributed team

Benefits

• Benefits to support your health, finances, and well-being
• Flexible Paid Time Off
• Team Member Resource Groups
• Equity Compensation & Employee Stock Purchase Plan
• Growth and Development Fund
• Parental Leave