Senior Software Engineer (Ruby), Security Platform: Authorization

GitLab is an intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps. The Senior Software Engineer will build and evolve authorization capabilities across GitLab's Ruby on Rails monolith and next-generation authorization platform, focusing on fine-grained permissions, policy enforcement, reliability, performance, and security.

Responsibilities:

• Design and ship authorization changes in GitLab's Ruby on Rails monolith, where a single request can trigger hundreds of permission checks
• Own a workstream end to end. Problem definition through feature-flagged rollout, dual-run verification, and cleanup
• Build and extend fine-grained permissions for tokens and roles, and keep the permission catalog coherent as it grows
• Extend and harden authorization enforcement across GraphQL and the REST API
• Refactor long-lived policy code so both the monolith and our new authorization engine can evaluate it, without changing behavior for existing customers
• Improve the reliability, performance, and security posture of existing authorization systems, including paying down permission-model debt
• Partner with the authentication, platform, AI, and modular-service teams on interface contracts as authorization moves toward a shared service
• Drive technical decisions in writing. Design docs, architecture decision records, and code review, in a fully asynchronous organization

Requirements:

• Significant experience building and operating production Ruby on Rails applications
• Experience designing or implementing authorization systems, including role-based access control and fine-grained permissions
• A security mindset
• Comfort making careful changes to large, long-lived codebases
• Working knowledge of GraphQL and API authorization patterns
• Attention to performance at scale
• Strong written communication
• hands-on PostgreSQL experience
• Helpful but not required: Rust, gRPC or Protocol Buffers, Cedar or other policy languages, Zanzibar-style authorization systems, Go, or service-oriented architecture