Backend Engineer, Software Supply Chain Security: Secrets Management

Overview

Git Lab is the intelligent orchestration platform for Dev Sec Ops . Git Lab enables organizations to increase developer productivity, improve operational efficiency, reduce security and compliance risk, and accelerate digital transformation. More than 50 million registered users and more than 50% of the Fortune 100 trust Git Lab to ship better, more secure software faster.

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. Git Lab 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.

You will join Git Lab's Software Supply Chain Security stage as the Staff Engineer, Secrets Management, providing technical leadership for Git Lab's strategic investment in integrated secrets management. You will set the technical direction for Git Lab Secrets Manager, our Open Bao-powered solution that helps customers securely store, distribute, and manage the lifecycle of secrets used across CI/CD pipelines. This role sits at the intersection of the Git Lab platform and the Open Bao open source project: you will drive architecture decisions for multi-tenant secrets management at scale, guide integration into Git Lab, and contribute upstream so we can deliver capabilities customers can trust.

• Lead the technical strategy for Git Lab Secrets Manager, setting architecture direction for secure, multi-tenant secrets management at scale.
• Own the integration between Git Lab and Open Bao, including name spaces, authentication mechanisms, and policy management.
• Collaborate with Pipeline Security, Authentication, and Platform teams to propose, review, and deliver cross-team secrets management improvements.
• Partner with  Infrastructure teams to ensure secrets management meets reliability, performance, and operational requirements.
• Represent Git Lab in the Open Bao open source project by contributing features upstream, participating in technical steering discussions, and maintaining strong technical credibility.
• Mentor and advise engineers on secrets management, cryptographic systems, and secure architecture patterns, raising the quality and consistency of designs and implementations.
• Interface with engineering managers and senior leadership to scope initiatives, clarify tradeoffs, and unblock delivery across teams.
• Engage with customers and external stakeholders to understand real-world needs and communicate Git Lab's secrets management capabilities and roadmap direction.

• Experience designing and operating secrets management systems (for example, Hashi Corp Vault, Open Bao, or cloud-native offerings), including secure storage, access control, and audit logging.
• Ability to lead architecture decisions for resilient, multi-tenant services that handle secrets operations at scale, including high availability and cluster management patterns.
• Working knowledge of cryptographic and key management concepts, such as encryption in transit and at rest, key derivation, and hardware security module (HSM) or PKCS#11 integrations.
• Experience implementing authentication and authorization integrations, such as JSON Web Token (JWT) or OpenID Connect (OIDC), mutual Transport Layer Security (mTLS), and certificate-based authentication.
• Proficiency building product integrations in Go (within the Open Bao or Vault ecosystem) and Ruby on Rails for Git Lab platform integration.
• Experience contributing to open source projects and working effectively with distributed governance, balancing upstream needs with product requirements.
• Demonstrated ability to operate with high autonomy, drive strategy, and serve as a trusted partner to senior leaders (including constructively challenging assumptions and tradeoffs).
• Strong communication and collaboration skills to influence across teams and levels, including mentoring engineers and working in a fully remote, asynchronous environment.

The Secrets Management team sits within the Pipeline Security group in Git Lab's Software Supply Chain Security stage. We own Git Lab Secrets Manager, an Open Bao-powered capability that helps teams securely store, distribute, and manage the lifecycle of secrets used across CI/CD pipelines. The team works closely with Authentication, Authorization, Compliance, and Platform counterparts to deliver secure defaults, reliable operations for , and product-grade integration between Git Lab and Open Bao (including name spaces, authentication, and policy management).

Our core challenge is building multi-tenant secrets…