Intermediate Backend Engineer - Code Security

GitLab; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Paid time off

Employee Resource Groups

Equity compensation

Growth & Development Fund

Parental Leave

Job summary

GitLab is seeking an Intermediate Backend Engineer for its Security Factory: Code Security team. You will help developers find and fix security issues in code and open source components, connecting dependency analysis, vulnerability detection, and automated remediation.

You’ll build analyzers that combine deterministic analysis with AI reasoning, extend CI packaging for analyzers, and contribute to remediation workflows—from sandbox updates to merge requests.

Qualifications

• Experience writing production-grade code in a systems language (Go and/or Rust).
• Familiarity with AI/LLM tools and evaluating outputs for trustworthiness.
• Ability to work autonomously in a remote, asynchronous environment.
• Willingness to learn vulnerabilities in code and software supply chain; OWASP/CWE awareness.

Responsibilities

• Develop secure, well-tested parsing for dependency manifests, SBOMs, and lockfiles.
• Extend analyzers with AI-driven and deterministic analysis; review results and benchmark findings.
• Create CWE-mapped detection rules and corresponding test fixtures.
• Contribute to CI packaging analyzers, AI workflows, and CLI tools; report findings in standard formats.
• Extend remediation services to open merge requests after updates.
• Identify technical debt and propose improvements; write maintainable code and participate in reviews.
• Participate in on-call rotations for product and security operations.

Skills

AI tools usage

Go

Rust

Ruby

Python

remote work

communication

problem solving

Tools

Docker

npm

Maven

pip

Bundler

Cargo

Job description

GitLab is the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps. GitLab enables organizations to increase developer productivity, improve operational efficiency, reduce security and compliance risk, and accelerate digital transformation. More than 50 million registered users and more than 50% of the Fortune 100* trust GitLab to ship better, more secure software faster.

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 valuesand 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.

*Fortune 500® is a registered trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, used under license. Claim based on GitLab data. Fortune 100 refers to the top 20% ranked companies in the 2025 Fortune 500 list, published in June 2025. Fortune and Fortune Media IP Limited are not affiliated with, and do not endorse products or services of GitLab.

Intermediate Backend Engineer, Security Factory: Code Security

An overview of this role

As an Intermediate Backend Engineer on GitLab’s Security Factory: Code Security team, you’ll help developers find and fix security issues in the code they write and the open source components they depend on.

Your work connects dependency analysis, vulnerability detection, and automated remediation. You’ll build parsing that tells the security analysis engine which libraries and frameworks a project uses, extend a service that turns security advisories into dependency update merge requests, and develop hybrid analyzers that combine rule-based detection with artificial intelligence (AI) reasoning. You’ll help evaluate how well those analyzers find real vulnerabilities and expand coverage of libraries, frameworks, and AI agent tooling.

We use AI-assisted development tools in our daily work and expect you to use them effectively and with good judgment.

What you’ll do

• Develop secure, well-tested, performant parsing for dependency manifests, lockfiles, and software bills of materials (SBOMs). Extend support for new package ecosystems and formats in the analysis engine and remediation service.
• Build and apply analyzers that combine deterministic analysis with AI-driven analysis, working with the team’s technical leadership. Review their results and measure false positives and missed findings against benchmark applications with known vulnerabilities.
• Create detection rules mapped to Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) and the test fixtures that prove they work.
• Contribute to packaging analyzers for continuous integration (CI) jobs, AI agent workflows, and command-line tools, reporting findings in GitLab’s standard security report formats.
• Extend the automated remediation service, from running dependency updates in a sandbox to opening merge requests.
• Solve technical problems of moderate scope and complexity. Identify technical debt that slows the team down, and propose and implement improvements.
• Write maintainable code that meets our internal standards, and help maintain those standards through code review.
• Participate in on-call rotations to troubleshoot product operations, security operations, and urgent engineering issues.

What you’ll bring

• Experience using AI or large language model (LLM) tools to generate or evaluate technical content, with the judgment to know when output is trustworthy and when it isn’t.
• Solid professional experience writing and testing production code in a systems language, particularly Go and/or Rust. We use both, plus Ruby for remediation and Python for some analyzers, and value a willingness to work across them.
• A willingness to learn how vulnerabilities arise in code and the software supply chain, explore common vulnerability classes such as the Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) Top 10 and CWE, and apply static analysis to detect them. Deep expertise isn’t required, and we’ll help you develop it.
• The ability to organize your work and follow through on tasks independently in a remote, largely asynchronous environment.
• The ability to communicate clearly and concisely about technical problems and propose iterative solutions.
• Helpful, but not required: experience with containerized workflows and continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD), or a willingness to learn them; package managers and dependency tooling such as npm, Maven, pip, Bundler, or Cargo; web or mobile frameworks; parsing, abstract syntax trees (ASTs), program analysis, or detection rules; or evaluating AI-driven detection against labeled data. We use Docker heavily.

About the team

The Security Factory: Code Security team builds GitLab’s code-level security scanning capabilities, spanning static application security testing (SAST) and dependency scanning.

We work closely with the Static Analysis team on GitLab’s SAST engines, with Composition Analysis on the broader software supply chain, and with other groups across the Sec section. We rely heavily on asynchronous work across time zones.

How GitLab Supports Full-Time Employees

• 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

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.

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.

Privacy Policy: Please review our Recruitment Privacy Policy. Your privacy is important to us.

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.