Engineering Leadership - Roles & Responsibilities

The Engineering Leadership becomes a cross-discipline management. For example, a Senior Engineering Manager will manage Backend Engineering Managers, Frontend Engineering Managers, and Fullstack Engineering Managers.

Levels

Senior Manager, Development

*The Senior Manager, Development reports to the Director, Development.

Senior Manager, Development Job Grade

The Senior Manager, Development is a grade 9.

Senior Manager, Development Responsibilities

• Extends that of the Frontend Engineering Manager and the Backend Engineering Manager responsibilities
• Manage up to six engineering teams
• Conduct managerial interviews for candidates, and train engineering managers to do said interviews
• Generate and implement process improvements, especially cross-team processes
• Hold regular 1:1s with team managers and skip-level 1:1s with all members of their team
• Management mentorship

Senior Manager, Development Requirements

• Extends that of the Frontend Engineering Manager and the Backend Engineering Manager requirements
• Technical credibility: Past experience as a product engineer and leading teams thereof
• Management credibility: Past experience (3 to 5 years) as an engineering manager
• Ability to understand, communicate and improve the quality of multiple teams
• Demonstrate longevity at at least one recent job
• Ability to be successful managing at a remote-only company
• Humble, servant leader
• Ability to use GitLab
• Be a user of GitLab, or familiar with our company recommended
• Prior Developer Platform or Tool industry experience recommended
• Prior product company experience recommended
• Prior high-growth startup experience recommended
• Experience working on systems at massive (i.e. consumer) scale recommended
• Deep open source experience recommended
• Experience working with global teams recommended
• We value diversity, inclusion and belonging in leadership
• Be inquisitive: Ask great questions

Principal Engineer

*The Principal Engineer reports to the Senior Engineering Manager, Development.

Principal Engineer Job Grade

The Principal Engineer is a grade 9.

Principal Engineer Responsibilities

• The Principal Engineer role acts as the individual equivalent of a Senior Engineering Manager, Development.
• Extends that of the Staff Frontend Engineer and the Staff Backend Engineer responsibilities
• Collaborates and makes proposals across several teams on their engineering work, and helps their team members make informed decisions in alignment with the sub-department strategic plans.
• Exposes technology and organizational needs across their sub-department.
• Teach, mentor, grow, and provide advice to other domain experts, individual contributors, across several teams in their sub-department.
• Play a central role in technical, business, and organizational contributions affecting the sub-department/department.
• Plan improvements and features with a 6 month view.
• Solves technical problems of the highest scope, complexity, and ambiguity for their sub-department.
• Interfaces with EMs and Senior management, and enables Staff Engineers to engage on department-level aspects of larger (sub-department wide) initiatives.
• Looks for innovation opportunities between several teams with a willingness to experiment and to boldly confront problems of large complexity and scope.
• Proposes initial technical implementations which support architectural changes that solve scaling and performance problems.
• Ensures that OKR level goals are aligned across several teams in their sub-department.
• Guides conversations to remove blockers and encourage collaboration across teams.
• Provides a point of escalation for sub-department teams facing complex technical challenges.
• Attain a measurable impact on the work of sub-department teams.
• Interact with customers and other external stakeholders as a consultant and spokesperson for the work of your sub-department.
• Exposes the work of the sub department and their business impact internally.
• Knowledgeable in all specialities practiced within the Department or Sub Department

Principal Engineer Requirements

• Extends either the Staff Frontend Engineer or the Staff Backend Engineer requirements

Director, Development

*The Director of Development role reports to the Senior Director, Development.

Director, Development Job Grade

The Director, Development is a grade 10.

Director, Development Responsibilities

• Extends that of the Senior Engineering Manager responsibilities

Director, Development Requirements

• Extends that of the Senior Engineering Manager requirements
• Excellent communication skills
• Expert hiring manager skills and experience
• A strong people management philosophy for managers and engineers
• Experience managing managers
• Agile project management skills
• Ability to understand, communicate and improve the quality of multiple teams
• Demonstrate longevity at at least one recent job
• Ability to be successful managing at a remote-only company
• Humble, servant leader
• Be a user of GitLab, or familiar with our company recommended
• Prior Developer Platform or Tool industry experience recommended
• Prior product company experience recommended
• Prior high-growth startup experience recommended
• Experience working on systems at massive (i.e. consumer) scale recommended
• Deep open source experience recommended
• Experience working with global teams recommended
• We value diversity, inclusion and belonging in leadership
• Be inquisitive: Ask great questions

Distinguished Engineer

*The Distinguished Engineer reports to the Director, Development.

Distinguished Engineer Job Grade

The Distinguished Engineer is a grade 10.

Distinguished Engineer Responsibilities

• The Distinguished Engineer role acts as the individual equivalent of a Director, Engineering
• Extends that of the Principal Engineer responsibilities
• At this level the person's contribution plays to their strength and role on the team. These contributions come in different forms such as: Ship large feature sets with team, completes feature discovery independently, publishes technical blogs and speaks at conferences, interfaces with customers and provides technical direction to stakeholders (Product, Sales, others)
• Generate technical and process improvements
• Contribute to the sense of psychological safety on your team
• Work cross-departmentally
• Be a technical mentor for other backend engineers
• Author architecture documents for epics
• Hold team members accountable within their roles

Distinguished Engineer Requirements

• Extends that of the Principal Engineer requirements

Senior Director, Development

*The Senior Director, Development reports to the VP of Development.

Senior Director, Development Job Grade

The Senior Director, Development is a grade 11.

Senior Director, Development Responsibilities

• This role is defined by the functional area(s) the person manages
• Extends that of the Director, Development responsibilities
• Organizational credibility: Past experience in managing an entire functional area of Engineering
• Prioritization of hiring efforts to focus on areas of most need and quickly recruit top engineering talent
• Motivate and communicate across multiple levels of their department
• Have successful peer partnerships with other department leaders in Engineering, and cross-functionally (Product Management, sales, marketing, alliances, etc)
• Provide a consistent/successful interface between Engineering Development and Product Management
• Development, measurement, and management of key metrics for functional area's performance
• Drive high throughput
• Standardize the development process where needed, allow local differences where advantages
• Help shift the organization toward CD over time

Senior Director, Development Requirements

• Extends that of the Director, Development requirements

Senior Distinguished Engineer

The Senior Distinguished Engineer reports to the Senior Director, Development or Director, Development of their sub-department.

Senior Distinguished Engineer Job Grade

The Senior Distinguished Engineer is a grade 11.

Senior Distinguished Engineer Responsibilities

• The Senior Distinguished Engineer role acts as the individual equivalent of a Senior Director, Engineering
• Extends that of the Distinguished Engineer responsibilities
• At this level the Senior Distinguished Engineer's minimal sphere of influence is across multiple sub-departments if not across their entire department
• Generate technical and process improvements
• Drive innovation within Engineering
• Identifies the balance between the immediate and long term impact of technical direction and guides the organisation to execution in this balance
• Be a technical, architectural, and career development mentor for other backend engineers
• Author architecture documents for epics, coordinate the interaction between architectural directions across the engineering organization

Senior Distinguished Engineer Requirements

• Extends that of the Distinguished Engineer requirements

Engineering Fellow

*The Engineering Fellow reports to the VP of Development.

Engineering Fellow Job Grade

The Engineering Fellow is a grade 12.

Engineering Fellow Responsibilities

• The Engineering Fellow acts as the individual contributor equivalent of a VP of Engineering.
• Extends that of the Senior Distinguished Engineer responsibilities
• Advocate for improvements to product quality, security, and performance that impact all of Engineering at GitLab.
• Solve technical problems of the highest scope and complexity for the entire organization.
• Exert significant influence on the overall objectives and long-range goals of GitLab.
• Ensure that our standards for style, maintainability, and best practices are suitable for the unique problems of scale and diversity of use represented by the GitLab product. Maintain and advocate for these standards through code review.
• Drive innovation across Engineering with a willingness to experiment and to boldly confront problems of immense complexity and scope.
• Actively seek out and prioritize our toughest technical challenges with a goal of creating significant improvement for GitLab's use, ease of development, and/or technical efficiency.
• Represent GitLab and its values in public communication in all aspects of our software development lifecycle and public relations. Interact with customers and other external stakeholders as a consultant and spokesperson for critical projects and aspects of our technical architecture.
• Provide mentorship for Senior and Staff Engineers at the company to help them grow in their technical responsibilities and to share your great expertise across the organization.
• Confidently ship immense or otherwise extremely high-impact features and improvements with minimal guidance and support from other members of the organization.
• Help create the sense of psychological safety in the department

Engineering Fellow Requirements

• Extends that of the Distinguished Engineer requirements

VP of Development

The VP of Development reports to the Chief Technology Officer.

VP of Development Job Grade

The VP of Development is a grade 12.

VP of Development Responsibilities

• Exends that of the Senior Director, Development responsibilities. It expands the role to cover full functional and product capabilities at GitLab
• Drive recruiting of a world class team at all levels
• Help their (senior) directors, senior managers, managers, and engineers grow their skills and experience
• Measure and improve the happiness of Engineering
• Make sure the handbook is used and maintained in a transparent way
• Implement technical and process improvements that are causal to most critical needs
• Participate and support a sense of psychological safety of the department
• Drive quarterly OKRs around company goals
• Define the agile project management process
• Be accountable for product quality, security, and performance
• Work across departments within engineering
• Work closely with Senior leaders of Product Management to provide a consistent/successful interface between Engineering Development and Product Management
• Support constantly changing priorities between product features, availability, performance, security and reliability
• Support process for incident management including quality control of RCAs

VP of Development Requirements

• Exends that of the Senior Director, Development requirements

Performance Indicators

• Response to Community SLO
• Hiring Actual vs. Plan
• Team/Group MR Rate
• Handbook Update Frequency

Career Ladder

For more details on the engineering career ladders, please review the engineering career development handbook page.

Hiring Process

Candidates for this position can generally expect the hiring process to follow the order below. Note that as candidates indicate preference or aptitude for one or more specialties, the hiring process will be adjusted to suit. Please keep in mind that candidates can be declined from the position at any stage of the process. To learn more about someone who may be conducting the interview, find their job title on our team page.

• Selected candidates will be invited to schedule a 30 minute screening call with one of our Technical Recruiters
• Next, candidates will be invited to schedule a 60 minute first interview with a Director of Engineering
• Next, candidates will be invited to schedule a 45 minute second peer interview with an Engineering Manager
• Next, candidates will be invited to schedule a 45 minute third interview with another member of the Engineering team
• Next, candidates will be invited to schedule a 45 minute fourth interview with a member of the Product team
• Next, candidates will be invited to schedule a 45 minute fifth interview with our VP of Engineering
• Finally, candidates may be asked to schedule a 50 minute final interview with our CEO
• Successful candidates will subsequently be made an offer via email

Chief Technology Officer

The Chief Technology Officer reports to the Chief Executive Officer.

Chief Technology Officer Job Grade

The Chief Technology Officer is a grade 12.

Chief Technology Officer Responsibilities

• Drive recruiting of a world class team
• Collaborate with the CEO and VP of Incubation Engineering on the 3-5 year vision
• Help their directors, senior managers, managers, and engineers grow their skills and experience
• Measure and improve the happiness of Engineering
• Make sure the handbook is used and maintained in a transparent way
• Sponsor technical and process improvements
• Own the sense of psychological safety of the department
• Set quarterly OKRs around company goals
• Define the agile project management process
• Spend time with customers to understand their needs and issues
• Be accountable for product quality, security, and performance

Chief Technology Officer Requirements

Chief Technology Officer Performance Indicators

• Response to Community SLO
• Hiring Actual vs. Plan
• Development Department merge request rate
• Diversity
• Handbook Update Frequency
• Team Member Retention

Chief Technology Officer Hiring Process

Candidates for this position can generally expect the hiring process to follow the order below. Note that as candidates indicate preference or aptitude for one or more specialties, the hiring process will be adjusted to suit. Please keep in mind that candidates can be declined from the position at any stage of the process. To learn more about someone who may be conducting the interview, find their job title on our team page.

• Selected candidates will be invited to schedule a 30 minute screening call with one of our Technical Recruiters
• Next, candidates will be invited to schedule a 60 minute first interview with a Director of Engineering
• Next, candidates will be invited to schedule a 45 minute second peer interview with an Engineering Manager
• Next, candidates will be invited to schedule a 45 minute third interview with another member of the Engineering team
• Next, candidates will be invited to schedule a 45 minute fourth interview with a member of the Product team
• Next, candidates will be invited to schedule a 45 minute fifth interview with our VP of Engineering
• Finally, candidates may be asked to schedule a 50 minute final interview with our CEO
• Successful candidates will subsequently be made an offer via email

*This is the typical reporting structure however deviations can be made based business need, technical alignment, current positions, career development, and/or organization size.

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About GitLab

GitLab Inc. is a company based on the GitLab open-source project. GitLab is a community project to which over 2,200 people worldwide have contributed. We are an active participant in this community, trying to serve its needs and lead by example. We have one vision: everyone can contribute to all digital content, and our mission is to change all creative work from read-only to read-write so that everyone can contribute.

We value results, transparency, sharing, freedom, efficiency, self-learning, frugality, collaboration, directness, kindness, diversity, inclusion and belonging, boring solutions, and quirkiness. If these values match your personality, work ethic, and personal goals, we encourage you to visit our primer to learn more. Open source is our culture, our way of life, our story, and what makes us truly unique.

Top 10 Reasons to Work for GitLab:

1. Mission: Everyone can contribute
2. Results: Fast growth, ambitious vision
3. Flexible Work Hours: Plan your day so you are there for other people & have time for personal interests
4. Transparency: Over 2,000 webpages in GitLab handbook, GitLab Unfiltered YouTube channel
5. Iteration: Empower people to be effective & have an impact, Merge Request rate, We dogfood our own product, Directly responsible individuals
6. Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging: A focus on gender parity, Team Member Resource Groups, other initiatives
7. Collaboration: Kindness, saying thanks, intentionally organize informal communication, no ego
8. Total Rewards: Competitive market rates for compensation, Equity compensation, global benefits (inclusive of office equipment)
9. Work/Life Harmony: Flexible workday, Family and Friends days
10. Remote Done Right: One of the world's largest all-remote companies, prolific inventor of remote best practices

See our culture page for more!