Software Engineer

GitLab; City of Westminster; Hybrid; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading tech company in the UK is seeking an Intermediate Backend Engineer for its CI Functions Platform. The role involves designing, developing, and optimizing backend services with Go, focusing on high-performance CI/CD solutions. Candidates should have experience in containerization, orchestration, and building scalable systems. This is a hybrid position requiring occasional office visits in Leeds or Manchester, along with benefits like paid time off and stock options.

Benefits

Flexible Paid Time Off

Equity Compensation & Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Growth and Development Fund

Parental leave

Home office support

Qualifications

• Proficiency in developing backend services in Go.
• Ability to design and build scalable, distributed systems for CI/CD.
• Experience with high-availability resilient systems.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop secure, high-performance features for CI Functions.
• Collaborate with Product Managers to assess technical feasibility.
• Implement proof-of-concept solutions for architecture discussions.

Skills

Backend development in Go

Designing scalable systems

Containerization with Docker

Orchestration with Kubernetes

Performance optimization

Collaboration skills

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Major cloud providers

Job description

Job Overview

As an Intermediate Backend Engineer on our Verify: CI Functions Platform team within the Verify: Runner organization, you'll help re-architect GitLab Runner so it can handle very large scale CI/CD operations. You'll also help build the foundational platform for CI Functions (formerly CI/CD Steps). You'll collaborate on technical initiatives and contribute to design and implementation, taking on work that matches your experience while growing your impact over time. You'll learn from how customers use our CI/CD capabilities and use that insight to help the team solve real‑world scaling and usability challenges.

What you'll do

• Design and develop features and improvements for the CI Functions Platform and GitLab Runner that are secure, well‑tested, and high‑performance, with a focus on strong architecture in Go services, appropriate for an intermediate‑level engineer.
• Partner with the Product Manager and senior engineers to assess the technical feasibility and scope of CI Functions and Runner‑related feature requests, contributing your perspective and asking clarifying questions.
• Implement proof‑of‑concept solutions and contribute to technical proposals that inform design and architecture discussions for the Step Runner and related components.
• Help break down complex, large‑scale CI/CD platform initiatives into iterative, maintainable, and testable increments, and deliver those increments reliably.
• Take end‑to‑end ownership – from design through implementation, code review, deployment, monitoring, and iterative refinement within the CI Functions Platform.
• Participate in architectural design reviews and help evolve the technical strategy for scaling CI Functions execution across diverse infrastructure (cloud, Kubernetes, and on‑premises).
• Collaborate closely with other engineers on the team through code reviews, pairing, and knowledge sharing, both learning from others and helping raise the overall technical bar.
• Work with cross‑functional partners, including Support and Product, to help diagnose, troubleshoot, and resolve customer issues related to CI Functions and GitLab Runner, and feed those learnings back into the product.

Job details: Software Engineer (12‑Month FTC) – Hybrid; 1 day per week in Leeds or Manchester office. 12‑Month Fixed Term Contract (FTC) – with potential to extend. Clearance Requirement: BPSS eligibility is essential.

What you'll bring

• Proficiency in developing backend services in Go and applying Go best practices in production, gained through professional work, open‑source contributions, or other hands‑on experience.
• Ability to design and build scalable, distributed systems and services that can grow with increasing demand, with an emphasis on CI/CD and workflow orchestration scenarios.
• Skill in building and iterating on highly available, resilient systems, ideally with exposure to high‑throughput CI pipelines, job orchestration, or similar infrastructure.
• Hands‑on skills with containerization and orchestration technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes, including deploying and operating services that run CI workloads across diverse environments.
• Ability to analyze, profile, and optimize performance in distributed systems using appropriate tools and observability data, especially for latency‑sensitive and resource‑intensive CI execution paths.
• Familiarity with cloud‑native infrastructure (e.g., a major cloud provider or infrastructure‑as‑code tools) and concepts related to site reliability and operating SaaS platforms that run large‑scale CI.
• Strong collaboration skills, including working closely with other engineers, contributing to architectural design reviews, and communicating clearly with cross‑functional partners.

About The Team

The Verify: CI Functions Platform team at GitLab sits within the Verify: Runner organization and designs and implements backend services that power demanding CI/CD workflows. We collaborate closely across the organization and use what we learn from customer usage and feedback to make iterative improvements to the platform.

Benefits to support you

• Flexible Paid Time Off
• Team Member Resource Groups
• Equity Compensation & Employee Stock Purchase Plan
• Growth and Development Fund
• Parental leave
• Home office support

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.

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