Senior Backend Engineer, Performance Enablement

An overview of this role

As a Senior Backend Engineer, Performance Enablement, you’ll make performance testing and analysis easier for engineering teams to adopt and own. You’ll build platforms, tooling, guidance, and artificial intelligence-assisted workflows that help teams identify performance risks during development and before they roll changes out to production.

We’re moving from a hands-on consulting model to a self-service model. Service teams own their performance tests, analysis, thresholds, and evidence. We provide the paved road, documentation, skills, and expert support for challenging problems and new capabilities.

This is a backend and platform engineering role with room to grow in scope and influence. You’ll help shape how Performance Enablement supports engineering teams, using artificial intelligence thoughtfully to accelerate design, implementation, testing, debugging, documentation, and automation.

You’ll support work such as:

• Enabling modular feature teams, including Orbit and Artifact Registry, to run performance testing through their own development and continuous integration workflows
• Building reusable performance tooling, including component-level testing, load testing, performance analysis, and artificial intelligence-assisted engineering skills
• Improving performance results, reporting, and trend visibility so teams can make informed decisions from their own evidence
• Establishing the documentation, templates, and guidance needed to expand self-service adoption across research and development

What you’ll do

• Build and evolve reusable backend platforms and tooling for performance testing and analysis.
• Create self-service workflows, documentation, templates, diagnostics, and artificial intelligence skills that reduce the need for bespoke support.
• Use development practices that apply artificial intelligence to accelerate implementation, testing, debugging, and technical documentation.
• Influence engineering teams to make performance testing part of normal development and release preparation.
• Turn early hands-on engagements into generalized capabilities that many teams can adopt independently.
• Provide technical expertise for difficult performance questions, tooling enhancements, and new platform capabilities.

What you’ll bring

• Experience building backend or platform software.
• Experience building internal platforms or developer-facing tooling.
• Experience partnering with development teams to improve their day-to-day workflows.
• Experience using development practices that apply artificial intelligence across the software lifecycle.
• Experience with software performance, such as performance analysis, optimization, benchmarking, or leading performance-related improvements.
• Practical experience with Kubernetes, k6, and Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, or similar cloud infrastructure.
• Experience building durable solutions that support broad adoption using systems thinking.
• Communicate clearly in writing and influence teams without direct authority.

About the team

Performance Enablement is part of Platform Enablement within Developer Experience and Infrastructure Platforms. We help GitLab teams make performance part of the software lifecycle.

Our goal is to make performance a shared responsibility of service-owning teams while providing a strong platform and center of expertise when teams need help. We work asynchronously, collaborate broadly across research and development, and focus on building capabilities that scale beyond individual team engagements.