Principal Database Engineer, Data Engineering & Monetization

Principal Database Engineer, Data Engineering & Monetization Remote, EMEA; Remote, North America

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 human progress. Our platform unites teams and organizations, breaking down barriers and redefining what's possible in software development. Thanks to products like Duo Enterprise and Duo Agent Platform , customers get AI benefits at every stage of the SDLC.

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, innovation, and impact. GitLab is where careers accelerate, innovation flourishes, and every voice is valued. Our high-performance culture is driven by our values and continuous knowledge exchange, enabling our team members to reach their full potential while collaborating with industry leaders to solve complex problems. Co-create the future with us as we build technology that transforms how the world develops software.

An overview of this role GitLab is building the future of DevOps at unprecedented scale. As our Principal Database Engineer, you'll architect the data platform foundation that powers both GitLab.com and thousands of enterprise deployments worldwide. This is an opportunity to design and build industry-leading database systems that enable GitLab's next phase of growth. You'll transform how we approach data reliability, scale our platform to support exponential growth, and establish patterns that become the gold standard for database development and operations. Working with our exceptional engineering talent, you'll have everything needed to create lasting impact.

In this role, you'll architect scalable, distributed solutions that transform how we manage and leverage data across our SaaS and self‑managed deployments, supporting enterprise‑scale growth. Combining deep technical expertise with strategic influence—you'll build proactive database health frameworks, drive adoption of modern database technologies and data stores, and create solutions that prevent incidents before they impact customers. Working at the intersection of product and infrastructure, you'll shape GitLab's data foundation while enabling engineering teams to succeed through self‑service tools, best practices, and automated reliability.

What You’ll Do

Lead database architecture and strategy for GitLab.com's PostgreSQL infrastructure, designing scalable solutions that support hundreds of thousands of concurrent users while ensuring reliability, performance, and long‑term growth planning

Build proactive database health and reliability frameworks that prevent incidents and customer escalations through continuous monitoring, automated remediation, and predictive analytics that surface issues before they impact users

Drive database excellence across engineering teams by establishing best practices, providing expert guidance on migrations and query optimization, and building self‑service tools and guardrails that enable teams to succeed while maintaining database health

Own end‑to‑end observability and operational excellence by designing symptom‑based monitoring systems, leading incident mitigation efforts, and transforming learnings into automated, repeatable processes that eliminate recurring issues

Shape GitLab's database platform evolution by evaluating and implementing modern database technologies and data stores, influencing organizational adoption through evidence‐based recommendations and hands‑on solutions that improve both product capabilities and production stability

Bring a multi‑platform mindset by designing and evaluating solutions that will help scale both GitLab.com and be manageable for our self‑managed customers.

Build partnerships between product and infrastructure teams to ensure that product and team decisions align with the infrastructure team’s priorities.

Break down long‑term goals into incremental, actionable steps that deliver customer value

Spend time in the codebase to maintain technical credibility and team empathy

Ship working solutions to customers over creating presentations or theoretical designs

Provide strategic context and leadership while leveraging domain expertise from peers across projects

Deep‑divе into critical technical problems for extended periods when needed

What You’ll Bring

Experience architecting, operating, and optimizing PostgreSQL in large‑scale distributed systems with high availability and disaster recovery requirements

Deep understanding of PostgreSQL internals including query planner, WAL mechanics, vacuum processes, and storage engine optimization

Proven track record designing and maintaining highly distributed production database environments with automated failover, monitoring, and self‑healing capabilities

Strong advocate for infrastructure‑as‑code, GitOps practices, security hardening, and SRE principles in database operations

Proven ability to debug across the full stack, from low‑level systems (Postgres, Elasticsearch source code) to frontend (TypeScript)

Strong hands‑on coding skills with experience balancing strategic leadership and technical execution

Track record of delivering results through collaboration with technical experts

You have strong, well‑informed opinions on database technologies and data stores backed by factual evidence, and can effectively influence the organization to adopt modern data stack solutions.

Challenges You’ll Tackle

Design solutions for uncontrolled data growth while maintaining performance and cost efficiency

Address critical customer pain points around database upgrades and migrations that impact support escalations

Create a sustainable operational model that scales with our growth without linear headcount increases

Build the foundation for GitLab's next‑generation data architecture including sharding, multi‑database support, and emerging data technologies

Shape the evolution of our database incident response strategy from a reactive high‑toil model, to a proactive platform organization

About the team Data Engineering and Monetization is a newly formed function within the Engineering Org with a mission to build a comprehensive foundation of data platforms with responsible data architecture that scales.

Base salary range for this role’s listed level is currently for residents of the United States only. This range is intended to reflect the role's base salary rate in locations throughout the US. Grade level and salary ranges are determined through interviews and a review of education, experience, knowledge, skills, abilities of the applicant, equity with other team members, alignment with market data, and geographic location. The base salary range does not include any bonuses, equity, or benefits. See more information on our benefits and equity. Sales roles are also eligible for incentive pay targeted at up to 100% of the offered base salary.

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, family medical history, discharge status from the military, protected veteran status (including 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.

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