Principal Site Reliability Engineer

Who you are

• Deep expertise in Site Reliability, Platform, Infrastructure, or Backend Engineering, with experience designing and operating large-scale production systems
• Hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure, automation, observability, infrastructure as code, and modern production engineering practices
• Strong software engineering fundamentals, with experience building production systems or infrastructure tooling in languages such as Go, Ruby, Python, or similar
• Strong distributed systems and systems-design expertise, with sound judgment around reliability, failure isolation, scalability, and operational complexity
• A track record of technical leadership across multiple teams, setting direction and driving complex initiatives through influence
• Experience leading significant platform or infrastructure transformations, including modernization, modularization, or scaling systems through major growth
• Experience leading changes that improve how engineering teams own and operate production systems, strengthening reliability, operational readiness, and accountability at scale
• Exceptional technical communication and influence, with the ability to build alignment, mentor senior engineers, and guide complex architectural decisions
• Please note that we welcome interest from candidates with varying levels of experience; many successful candidates do not meet every single requirement. Additionally, studies have shown that people from underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to a job unless they meet every single qualification. If you're excited about this role, please apply and allow our recruiters to assess your application

What the job involves

• We’re looking for a Principal Engineer with deep expertise in Site Reliability, Backend, or Platform Engineering to help shape the next phase of GitLab Dedicated, our fully managed single-tenant SaaS offering
• This highly influential technical leadership role will set direction for how we scale a growing fleet of isolated, customer-specific environments while maintaining the reliability, security, and compliance our customers depend on
• You’ll lead platform and operating-model transformation across resilience and failover, tenant orchestration, change management, self-service tooling, and platform integrations
• You’ll also help align Dedicated with GitLab’s evolution toward more modular and cell-based architectures, strengthen service ownership, and establish scalable patterns that reduce operational complexity
• As a Principal Engineer, you’ll influence across teams, guide complex technical decisions, mentor senior engineers, and help raise the technical maturity of the platform as we scale
• Set technical direction for GitLab Dedicated, shaping architecture and platform strategy as we scale a growing fleet of isolated, single-tenant environments
• Lead platform transformations across resilience, failover, tenant orchestration, change management, self-service tooling, and platform integrations
• Drive scalable, modular architecture that aligns Dedicated with GitLab’s broader Cells strategy while preserving its security, isolation, and compliance requirements
• Strengthen service ownership and operational maturity, helping engineering teams build, operate, and improve the production systems they own
• Identify and address systemic reliability and scalability risks using production signals, incident patterns, and architectural insight
• Establish reusable platform patterns and automation that reduce operational toil and allow Dedicated to scale efficiently
• Lead complex technical decisions across teams, balancing reliability, security, cost, maintainability, and customer needs
• Advance engineering excellence across the organization through architectural leadership, mentorship, and influence with senior engineers and engineering leaders

Benefits

• We offer benefits to manage your health, wealth, and well-being regardless of location
• Flexibility in schedule to be there for life’s important moments
• Equity compensation & Employee Stock Purchase Plan offered
• Generous Paid Time Off