Staff Backend Engineer, SSCS: Authentication

An overview of this role:

Help us build the future of secure and easy to manage access at GitLab. Whether it’s a simple user and password based login, enhancing our access token strategy or driving consolidation of authorization checks that manage access to thousands of resources, as a Backend Engineer on our team, you'll play a key role in the implementation of various authentication strategies and improving access management for our users. 

Your role will also involve building new authentication mechanisms from ground up such as support for Passkeys and passwordless authentication while helping keep GitLab and its customers secure by robust access management tooling and addressing vulnerabilities on existing features reported via our HackerOne program.

Authentication group works across many core components that are used by not only external users but also by the rest of the GitLab teams, allowing you to make a direct impact on the GitLab product.

Some of our example projects:

• Enterprise user management and controls
• Secure automation improvements via Service accounts
• Transparent credential management through Credentials Inventory
• Composite Identities to merge machine and human authorization for AI
• Token management tooling
• SAML, LDAP, OIDC and SCIM enhancements for automated user provisioning and SSO.

What you’ll do:  

• Contribute to the overall direction of the team and play a direct part in driving future roadmap direction of a secure and scalable authentication solution for GitLab.
• Contribute to implementation and expanding of various authentication strategies into our product.
• Bolster security posture of our users and organizations by helping develop fine grained access control and frictionless user management.
• Solve technical problems of high scope and complexity.
• Help to define and improve our internal standards for style, maintainability, and best practices for a high-scale web environment. Maintain and advocate for these standards through code review.
• Represent GitLab and its values in public communication around broader initiatives, specific projects, and community contributions.
• Confidently ship moderately sized features and improvements with moderate guidance and support from other team members.
• Collaborate with the team on larger projects.
• Improve the engineering projects at GitLab via the maintainer trainee program at your own comfortable pace, while striving to become a project maintainer.

What you’ll bring:

• Considerable professional experience with Ruby on Rails.
• Experience in a scaling or mission critical SaaS product.
• Familiarity with authentication and authorization technologies or techniques such as SAML, SSO, SCIM, LDAP, RBAC or IAM will help you stand out. These are not a prerequisite but great to know.
• Proficiency in the English language, both written and verbal, sufficient for success in a remote and largely asynchronous work environment.
• Demonstrated capacity to clearly and concisely communicate complex problems and solutions
• Experience with performance and optimization problems and a demonstrated ability to both diagnose and prevent these problems.
• Comfort working in a highly agile, intensely iterative software development process.
• Positive and solution-oriented mindset.
• Experience owning a project from concept to production, including proposal, discussion, and execution.
• Self-motivated and self-managing, with strong organizational skills.

About the team:

Our mission is to empower GitLab system administrators with the toolkit they need to create their desired balance of security and accessibility for their GitLab experience. 

Authentication is the first impression any new customer has when they configure their shiny new GitLab instance, and we aim to make it as seamless as possible: from that moment of first logging in, to onboarding users, to managing the basic security rules for their instance in a secure, flexible and scalable manner.

How GitLab will support you

• Benefits to support your health, finances, and well-being
• All remote, asynchronous work environment
• 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. If you're excited about this role, please apply and allow our recruiters to assess your application.