Role overview

Forward Deployed Engineer- EMEA

Requirements and responsibilities

Readable role content extracted into sections for faster review.

Product contribution

  • Contribute production-quality code to GitLab’s product and adjacent systems.
  • Develop bug fixes, features, integrations, tooling, and performance improvements when strategic customer outcomes require direct engineering work.
  • Work within GitLab’s product and engineering processes, including issue discovery, merge request creation, testing, review, documentation, and maintainability.
  • Partner with Product and Engineering so customer-driven solutions support long-term product direction rather than becoming one-off customizations.
  • Turn blockers discovered in the field into durable product improvements, reference architectures, documentation, and repeatable implementation patterns.

Strategic technical stewardship

  • Engage with strategically important customers when adoption, retention, executive confidence, or public trust is materially at risk.
  • Diagnose complex problems across GitLab product behavior, customer architecture, Git internals, CI/CD workflows, API usage, observability, infrastructure, networking, and cloud environments.
  • Coordinate across Product, Engineering, SRE, Support, SA, CSA, CSM, Professional Services, and customer technical teams to drive resolution from discovery through handoff.
  • Provide recommendations grounded in data, traces, and systems analysis to improve GitLab usage, workflows, automation, and architecture.
  • Create durable outcomes without establishing permanent dependency on Forward Deployed Engineering.

AI adoption and agentic software development lifecycle

  • Drive governed, measurable, and production-oriented adoption of GitLab Duo Agent Platform with strategic customers.
  • Identify and resolve AI adoption blockers involving governance, usage controls, auditability, security, compliance, operating models, workflow design, and integrations.
  • Develop customer-safe adoption patterns for the agentic software development lifecycle (SDLC), AI-assisted development, intent-based review, AI governance, and human-in-the-loop software delivery.
  • Partner with Product, Engineering, Field, and Customer Success teams to turn AI adoption learning into reusable guidance and product improvements.

Thought leadership

  • Create technical narratives grounded in customer experience and product reality that can help shape the industry’s approach.
  • Contribute to Well-Architected Frameworks, whitepapers, webinars, reference architectures, technical strategy memos, and adoption frameworks.
  • Guide ideas through discovery, formulation, validation, amplification, and adoption across GitLab.
  • Partner with SA, CSA, Product, Engineering, Marketing, Product Marketing Management, CSM, Support, and executive stakeholders to make technical thought leadership a shared company capability.

What you’ll bring

  • Staff-level experience building, operating, or improving complex production software systems.
  • Experience contributing to large, mature product codebases with high standards for testing, maintainability, performance, and security.
  • Strong Ruby on Rails or Go experience and the ability to contribute directly to GitLab’s product and adjacent systems.
  • Experience with AI-assisted software development, agentic workflows, AI governance, model evaluation, context management, prompt and workflow design, or AI adoption in enterprise environments.
  • Experience diagnosing complex system behavior across application code, data stores, infrastructure, observability, networking, APIs, and customer usage patterns.
  • Deep knowledge of modern DevSecOps workflows, including Git, merge requests, CI/CD, security controls, compliance needs, and enterprise software delivery.
  • Experience working with strategic customers or senior technical stakeholders in ambiguous, high-impact situations.
  • The ability to coordinate across product, engineering, field, and customer teams without formal authority.
  • Strong written communication and sound judgment, including the ability to create technical narratives and distinguish reusable product work from customer-specific customization.

Strongly preferred qualifications

  • Direct experience with GitLab as a platform, including GitLab.com, GitLab Dedicated, or GitLab Self-Managed.
  • Production experience with Ruby on Rails, Go, PostgreSQL, Redis, Sidekiq, Vue, TypeScript, Kubernetes, Docker, Linux, or observability tools.
  • Deep familiarity with Git internals, repository performance, large-scale Git usage patterns, or GitLab Runner behavior.
  • Experience creating technical thought-leadership materials, such as whitepapers, technical talks, architecture frameworks, requests for comments, public technical writing, or internal strategy documents.
  • A background in performance engineering, site reliability engineering, platform engineering, infrastructure engineering, or distributed systems.
  • Experience working in open source or highly asynchronous engineering environments.

Technologies and domains

  • Ruby on Rails
  • Go
  • AI-assisted development and the agentic SDLC
  • PostgreSQL
  • Redis and Sidekiq
  • Git internals
  • GitLab CI/CD and Runner architecture
  • Kubernetes and containers
  • Terraform
  • Linux, networking, observability, and performance analysis
  • Vue and TypeScript
  • APIs and automation
  • DevSecOps governance, security, and compliance

What this role is not

  • A generic field engineering role.
  • A proof-of-concept factory.
  • A replacement for Solutions Architecture, Customer Success Architecture, Customer Success Management, Professional Services, Support, SRE, Product, or Engineering.
  • A customer-specific customization function.
  • Unbilled Professional Services.
  • A requirements-gathering role that only escalates to Product.
  • An AI evangelism role disconnected from product execution.

Success measures

  • Stabilizing strategic customer adoption or retention risks.
  • Fixing product bugs or contributing features.
  • Removing AI adoption blockers for strategic accounts.
  • Creating reusable implementation patterns and transitioning them to long-term owners.
  • Producing or enabling Well-Architected Frameworks, whitepapers, webinars, or technical narratives.
  • Resolving cross-functional customer challenges without creating permanent dependency on Forward Deployed Engineering.
  • Equipping Product, Engineering, Support, CSA, CSM, Professional Services, and SA teams with better guidance based on learning from the field.
  • Increasing adoption and effective use of GitLab capabilities, especially GitLab Duo and GitLab Duo Agent Platform, in targeted accounts.

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
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