Senior Backend Engineer (Ruby), Plan: Knowledge

GitLab is an open-core software company that develops the most comprehensive AI-powered DevSecOps Platform, used by more than 100,000 organizations. Our mission is to enable everyone to contribute to and co-create the software that powers our world. When everyone can contribute, consumers become contributors, significantly accelerating human progress. Our platform unites teams and organizations, breaking down barriers and redefining what's possible in software development. Thanks to products like Duo Enterprise and Duo Agent Platform, customers get AI benefits at every stage of the SDLC.

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 values and 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.

An overview of this role

We are seeking a Backend Engineer to join our growing Plan:Knowledge team as the Markdown expert and Directly Responsible Individual (DRI). The Plan:Knowledge team is focused on GitLab's suite of tools for knowledge management practices and collaboration, with particular emphasis on our markdown processing pipeline and text rendering systems.

As a Backend Engineer, you'll be the technical lead for GitLab's markdown infrastructure, including our GLFM (GitLab Flavored Markdown) implementation, the gitlab-glfm-markdown gem, and our Rust and Ruby based markdown processing systems. You'll work closely with experienced engineers across backend, frontend, security, and product teams while being the go-to expert for markdown-related architecture decisions and knowledge sharing.

Some key challenges you'll help solve include:

• Architect and maintain GitLab's markdown processing infrastructure that serves millions of users
• Ensure markdown rendering is secure, preventing XSS and other vulnerabilities
• Optimize markdown parsing performance for high-scale environments
• Evolve GitLab Flavored Markdown (GLFM) to compete with other knowledge management platforms
• Lead the technical direction for markdown-related features across the GitLab product

What You'll Do

• Own and maintain the gitlab-glfm-markdown gem and its Rust-based components
• Work extensively with Comrak or other similar CommonMark parsers
• Develop secure, well-tested, and performant backend features using Ruby on Rails and Rust
• Lead the technical design and implementation of Banzai pipelines and markdown parsing improvements
• Collaborate with security teams to identify and mitigate markdown-related vulnerabilities and XSS risks
• Architect reference processing systems and markdown extension mechanisms
• Mentor other engineers on markdown best practices and share deep domain knowledge
• Collaborate with Product Management and stakeholders to iterate on markdown-related features
• Maintain high code quality standards through thorough code review and testing
• Contribute to GitLab's markdown documentation and internal knowledge sharing
• Troubleshoot complex markdown parsing and rendering issues across the platform
• Stay current with CommonMark specifications and markdown ecosystem developments

What You'll Bring

• Professional experience with Ruby on Rails
• Professional experience with markdown specifications, parsing, and rendering
• Professional experience with Rust programming and ecosystem
• Professional experience with Comrak or similar CommonMark parsers
• Deep understanding of web security, particularly XSS prevention in user-generated content
• Experience with automated testing in both Rust and Ruby
• Understanding of text processing pipelines and parsing
• Experience with performance optimization for text processing at scale
• Solid understanding of HTML sanitization and content security policies
• Experience using Git in a professional environment with complex branching strategies
• Demonstrated ability to architect and maintain large-scale text processing systems
• Strong communication skills for explaining complex technical concepts to diverse stakeholders
• Experience working in highly agile, iterative development environments
• Ability to work independently and take ownership of critical infrastructure components
• Positive mindset with strong problem-solving abilities

About the team

We work closely with the larger GitLab Plan Stage while maintaining our specialized focus on knowledge management. Our technical stack includes Rails, Go and Rust backends and Vue.js frontends.

You’ll be joining a team of 6 engineers. Plan:Knowledge team owns Markdown, Rich Text Editor, GLQL Views, Gitlab Wiki, GitLab Pages, and everything related to text editing in GitLab. Our focus is transforming knowledge management experience into a fully-featured collaborative solution that would be used across the entire GitLab product.

As the Backend Engineer, you will work on the many highly requested features as well as maintaining the existing features. You’ll get to know our codebase, roadmap, and working methods. You will be empowered to take ownership and drive the implementation of the prioritized features or defects. You’ll help the team and community via code review, issue refinement, engaging with users and open-source contributors on public issues and merge requests, and advocating for process improvements.

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. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know during the recruiting process.