GitLab protected branch

I have created a new project at gitlab.com and added few members as “developers”. I can also see from the members list that my own user id is a “master” for the project.

When one of the “developers” try to push the code to master branch, he sees error “You are not allowed to push code to protected branches on this project”.

When i go under “Settings | Repository | Protected Branches”, i dont see “master” listed there, in fact there are no branches listed there. I manually tried to add “master” to the protected list after selecting “Developers plus Master” role for both “Allowed to merge” and “Allowed to push” settings, however clicking on “Protect” button with these settings DOES NOT add master to the protected branches list.

Bit lost here, is it possible to allow a “developer” to push to the master branch?

Sincerely
Praveen Kumar