Manager, Engineering, Nonlinear Productivity (Friction Elimination & Solutions)

GitLab is seeking a Manager, Engineering, Nonlinear Productivity (Friction Elimination & Solutions) to help break the linear relationship between headcount and engineering output.

As Manager, Engineering, Nonlinear Productivity (Friction Elimination & Solutions), you’ll oversee the initiative’s forward-scanning work, reviewing GitLab’s software development lifecycle and code-generation workflows to spot recurring friction, test durable fixes, and identify internal solutions that could become customer-facing products.

Responsibilities:

• Survey GitLab’s internal software development lifecycle and code-generation workflows to identify structural friction early, and build a data-backed view of where technical interventions will have the highest leverage.
• Evaluate build, buy, and adapt options for each opportunity, including emerging agentic and AI tooling, with a clear view of cost, risk, and durability.
• Stand up prototypes and review architecture directly to test whether a proposed fix moves a target metric and represents a durable solution before GitLab makes broader engineering investment.
• Hire and manage a small, high-caliber team, or operate as a hands-on working manager, with a focus on talent density over headcount.
• Drive validated fixes from prototype to internal adoption by partnering with affected teams so solutions are relied on, used, and maintained.
• Build the technical and business case for productizing internal fixes that prove durable, in partnership with product.
• Document reusable learnings so successful internal fixes don’t remain tribal knowledge.
• Report impact through changes in key metrics and progress on turning internal fixes into products, including a clear account of what didn’t work.

Requirements:

• Ability to use GitLab.
• A track record of identifying and shipping technical fixes for developer productivity, continuous integration and continuous delivery, or platform friction, including problems you found before they were assigned.
• Comfort operating with high ambiguity and no existing backlog, building the roadmap rather than executing one handed down.
• People management experience, including in a small-team or working-manager capacity.
• Technical depth to evaluate and prototype solutions directly, not only direct others toward them.
• Product judgment to assess whether an internal tool could hold up for paying customers.
• Familiarity with agentic or AI-assisted development tooling.
• Experience moving an internal tool toward an external, customer-facing product is advantageous.

Benefits:

• 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