Intermediate Rust Backend Engineer - Data Insights

GitLab is the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps, trusted by over 50 million registered users and more than 50% of the Fortune 100 to ship better, more secure software faster.

As an Intermediate Backend Engineer on the GitLab Orbit team, you will help build and operate a high-performance graph data service supporting GitLab Duo AI agents, advanced analytics, and architecture-level features across GitLab.com, Dedicated, and Self-Managed environments. Sitting within a Rust-first team, you will develop the Knowledge Graph service—a backend that indexes software development lifecycle (SDLC) and code data into property graphs utilizing Rust, ClickHouse, NATS JetStream, and the Data Insights Platform. You will own well-scoped engine components, expose Model Context Protocol (MCP) endpoints, and contribute to system reliability, observability, and operational maturity.

Key Responsibilities

• Rust Backend Engineering: Implement and iterate on backend features in the Rust-based Knowledge Graph service, including query engine optimizations, SDLC code indexing pipelines, and API/MCP endpoints.
• Platform Integration: Maintain and evolve integrations touching GitLab Rails (Ruby), the Data Insights Platform (Siphon, NATS JetStream, ClickHouse), and the GitLab Duo Agent Platform.
• System Design & Graph Architecture: Propose architecture options and document decisions for property graph modeling, multi-step (n-hop) traversals, and analytical query execution at scale.
• Operational Readiness: Enhance service maturity by adding metrics, logging, alerts, and operational runbooks, participating in asynchronous incident response and on-call rotations appropriate to your level.
• AI-Assisted Workflows: Incorporate AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Knowledge Graph-backed agents and internal GitLab Duo tooling) into daily coding workflows to drive productivity and shared learnings.
• Cross-Stack Collaboration: Collaborate asynchronously across time zones with AI, analytics, security, and infrastructure teams, contributing occasional Ruby (Rails) or TypeScript/Vue code where features touch adjacent systems.

Requirements

Experience & Functional Background

• Professional experience building, shipping, and maintaining production backend systems with a focus on reliability, maintainability, and operational support.
• Proficiency in at least one modern backend programming language paired with a strong interest or active experience in Rust (with clear evidence of ability to ramp rapidly in a performance-sensitive Rust codebase).
• Practical exposure to distributed data or analytics systems (OLAP databases like ClickHouse, message brokers like NATS or Kafka, or Change Data Capture/CDC pipelines).
• Solid fundamentals in system design, reasoning about technical trade-offs, and clear written technical communication in an all-remote, asynchronous work culture.

Mindset & Tooling

• Practical experience or strong interest in using AI tools within day-to-day software development workflows.
• Language-agnostic engineering mindset with willingness to contribute across adjacent stacks (Ruby on Rails, Go, TypeScript/Vue) when integration paths require it.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience with graph data modeling (property graphs, multi-hop queries, graph algorithms).
• Hands-on experience with Model Context Protocol (MCP) tooling or agentic AI integration frameworks.