GitLab
Senior Fullstack Engineer (Ruby on Rails/Vue.js), Create: Remote Development
GitLab is an open core software company that develops the most comprehensive AI-powered DevSecOps Platform, used by more than 100,000 organizations. Our mission is to enable everyone to contribute to and co-create the software that powers our world. When everyone can contribute, consumers become contributors, significantly accelerating the rate of human progress. This mission is integral to our culture, influencing how we hire, build products, and lead our industry. We make this possible at GitLab by running our operations on our product and staying aligned with our values. Learn more about Life at GitLab.
An overview of this role
You’ll be joining the Create:Remote Development team at GitLab, a group on a mission to redefine how developers work, no more “works on my machine”.
As a Senior Fullstack Engineer, you’ll help shape the future of cloud-based development environments through our Workspaces and Web IDE offerings. Your work will directly impact how developers write, build, test, and debug code, removing the friction of local setup and unlocking productivity from day one.
You’ll lead fullstack initiatives that improve reliability, performance, and user experience across our Remote Development tools. From VS Code integrations to building the infrastructure that powers Shared Workspaces and multi-editor support (JetBrains, JupyterLab, etc.), your work will touch all layers of the stack: Vue.js and TypeScript on the frontend, Ruby on Rails and GraphQL on the backend, and even Kubernetes under the hood.
Curious what’s on the roadmap? Think workspace performance improvements, workspace failure diagnostics, CI Runner integration, and improving our update process for VS Code fork. You’ll also play a key role in acting on user feedback, mentoring peers, and driving technical excellence with scalable solutions.
Check out what we’ve been building:
- Quick start guide for GitLab Workspaces
- GitLab default Devfile
- Build and run containers in Workspaces
- Use GitLab AI features in Workspaces
You’ll report into the Engineering Manager for Remote Development, and together, you’ll shape the future of cloud development at GitLab.
What You’ll Do
- Lead the design and implementation of fullstack features for GitLab Workspaces, contributing to both the frontend (Vue.js, TypeScript) and backend (Ruby on Rails, GraphQL).
- Collaborate closely with Product, Design, and other Engineers to improve the user experience and UX scorecard for Remote Development tools.
- Build scalable integrations for popular development environments like VS Code, JetBrains, and JupyterLab.
- Improve observability and diagnostics around workspace creation failures to help users troubleshoot and recover quickly.
- Contribute to code reviews, RFCs, and Proof-of-Concepts that shape the technical direction of the product.
- Mentor and support fellow engineers, especially those looking to grow into fullstack contributors.
- Actively participate in technical planning and drive long-term architectural improvements for performance, scalability, and maintainability.
- Work async-first with a globally distributed team, while also participating in necessary sync meetings like high level planning, engineering brainstorming sessions and pairing sessions.
- Help shape product direction through user feedback, community engagement and being Developer 0 for our product (we like to use our own tools).
- Participate in agile development practices, including planning sessions, stand-ups, and retrospectives, to drive iterative software development and continuous improvement for the team
- Here are some items currently on our roadmap that you’ll be able to contribute to:
- Shared Workspaces - Enable multiple users to collaborate in the same remote development workspace for pair programming and troubleshooting.
- Inject JetBrains Editors into a Workspace - Expand editor support beyond VS Code to reach more developer preferences.
- Improve Workspace Creation Failure Visibility and Troubleshooting - Help users understand why workspace creation fails and how to fix it.
- Improve VSCode Fork Update Process - Automate - Automate our internal fork syncing process to stay up-to-date with upstream VS Code.
- Support using the Language Server in the Web IDE - Enable the Web IDE and ultimately Workspaces to have the latest features implemented for the GitLab Duo suite such as code suggestions, streaming, and advanced context.
- Support Workspaces on GitLab CI Runners - Let users spin up Workspaces on their existing CI Runners infrastructure without needing to setup Kubernetes.
What You’ll Bring
- Professional experience with Vue.js, TypeScript, GraphQL, and Ruby on Rails.
- Proven ability to mentor engineers, lead technical initiatives, and drive frontend and fullstack best practices.
- Experience working with VS Code under the hood, VS code extensions, Language Servers, and developer tools.
- A strong product mindset and ability to collaborate closely with cross-functional teams including Product, Design and Technical Writing.
- Ability to work across the stack to deliver end-to-end solutions.
- Comfort navigating and contributing to large monolith codebases and setting best practices.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, especially in async-first, remote environments.
- A proactive, self-managing approach to work with a bias for action and ownership.
- Passion for developer experience and a desire to contribute to open source and the broader dev community.
About the team
The Create:Remote Development team focuses on building cloud-based solutions to empower teams to build and deliver software more efficiently. The team focuses on two main areas: Workspaces and WebIDE. These tools allow developers write, build, test, and debug code without needing to set up a local development environment taking away the hassles we’ve all been through with setting up and configuring complex environments.
The team is made up of experienced Engineers who care about contributing to the developer ecosystem; located across different time zones, async communication and manager of one is core to how we continue to deliver value to users. The Create:Remote Development team cares deeply about GitLab’s core values and has principles that align with those values. We aim to fight for the user, question everything, embrace the challenge that is Software Development, lean into discomfort as an expected part of this process, keep the fun in the team, measure what matters and ultimately become users of our own product. The team cares deeply about contributing to the GitLab community and the developer ecosystem as a whole.
As a Senior Fullstack Engineer, you will primarily work on our Workspaces offering which provide remote development solutions which enables developers to quickly spin up developer sandboxes. You'll work closely with other experienced team members, fostering a culture of continuous learning. Your role is key in shaping our product offerings and roadmap as an Engineer building tools that enable other Engineers to work efficiently and increase productivity without the hassles that maintaining a local development environment comes with.
True to our transparency core value, you can explore our direction and upcoming priorities in our Workspaces Category Strategy epic. We also actively track user feedback, technical debt, and have a dedicated epic focused on enhancing the contributor experience. Your contributions will directly shape the developer experience for teams, including open source contributors and enterprise users alike.
Remote-Global
Country Hiring Guidelines: GitLab hires new team members in countries around the world. All of our roles are remote, however some roles may carry specific location-based eligibility requirements. Our Talent Acquisition team can help answer any questions about location after starting the recruiting process.
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GitLab is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. GitLab’s policies and practices relating to recruitment, employment, career development and advancement, promotion, and retirement are based solely on merit, regardless of race, color, religion, ancestry, sex (including pregnancy, lactation, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression), national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, mental or physical disability, genetic information (including family medical history), discharge status from the military, protected veteran status (which includes disabled veterans, recently separated veterans, active duty wartime or campaign badge veterans, and Armed Forces service medal veterans), or any other basis protected by law. GitLab will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics. See also GitLab’s EEO Policy and EEO is the Law. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know during the recruiting process.
