Solutions Architect

Solutions Architects are the trusted advisors to GitLab prospects and clients, showing how the GitLab solutions address client business requirements. Solutions Architects are responsible for driving and managing the technology evaluation and validation stages of the sales process. Solutions Architects are the product advocates for GitLab’s Enterprise Edition. They focus on the technical solution while also understanding the business outcomes the customer is trying to achieve.

The Solutions Architect helps drive value and change with software development for one of the fastest-growing platforms. By applying solution selling and architecture experience from planning to monitoring, the Solutions Architect supports and enables successful adoption of the GitLab platform. Solutions Architects work with GitLab's top enterprise customers. Solutions Architects work collaboratively with Sales, Engineering, Product Management, and Marketing organizations.

This role provides technical guidance and support throughout the entire sales cycle. Solution Architects can help shape and execute a strategy to build mindshare and broad use of the GitLab platform with customers by becoming the trusted advisor. The ideal candidate must be self-motivated with a proven track record in software/technology sales or consulting. Proficiency in connecting technology solutions to measurable business value is critical to a Solutions Architect. Candidates should also have a demonstrated skill to think strategically about business, products, and technical problems.

To learn more, see the Solutions Architect handbook

Levels

Performance Indicators

As with all roles in the Sales Department, the Solutions Architect participates in a subset of the Sales KPIs.

Levels

Associate Solutions Architect

The Assocate Solutions Architect reports to the Manager, Solutions Architect.

Associate Solutions Architect Job Grade

The Associate Solutions Architect is a grade 5

Associate Solutions Architect Responsibilities & Requirements

The Associate Solutions Architect has the same responsibilites and requirements as a Solutions Architect, but with less experience.

Solutions Architect

The Solutions Architect reports to the Manager, Solutions Architect.

Solutions Architect Job Grade

The Solutions Architect is a grade 6

Solutions Architect Responsibilities

• Engage with customers, both onsite and remote, in a technical consultancy and advisor role during the pre-sales process while providing technical assistance and solution guidance.
• In partnership with the sales team, formulate and execute a sales strategy to exceed revenue targets through the adoption of GitLab.
• With comprehensive knowledge of the GitLab platform and associated technologies, educate customers of all sizes on the value proposition of GitLab while participating in discussions throughout the organization to ensure successful GitLab deployment.
• Guide technical evaluations via POC/POV ownership, RFP/audit support, and workshop design.
• Build deep relationships with people within customer environments to enable them to be GitLab advocates.
• Serve as the customer advocate to other GitLab teams, including Product Development, Sales, and Marketing.
• Continuously improve your professional skills with a focus on personal mastery and team learning through activities such as training, reading and seeking mentorship from others.
• Maintain specialty competency in one or more technologies related to GitLab's market focus through activities such as training, certification and creation of working examples for reuse internally and by customers and partners.

Solutions Architect Requirements

• Technical presentation and communication skills
• Experience with technical pre-sales or as a professional in the field of information technology
• Knowledge of the end-to-end software development lifecycle
• Understanding of continuous integration and continuous deployment
• Experience with modern software development or operations and their associated technologies
• Experience with cloud computing and related technologies and practices
• Willingness to travel
• B.Sc. in Computer Science or equivalent experience
• Successful completion of a background check – see the GitLab Code of Business Conduct and Ethics.
• Ability to use GitLab

Senior Solutions Architect

The Senior Solutions Architect reports to the Manger, Solutions Architect.

Senior Solutions Architect Job Grade

The Senior Solutions Architect is a grade 7

Senior Solutions Architect Responsibilities

• Extends the Associate Solutions Architect responsibilities
• Solve technical customer issues of broad scope and high complexity.
• Provide mentorship for Solution Architecture team members and remain a current contributor to team-learning initiatives and activities.
• Work cross-departmentally to find solutions to complex scenarios and integration issues.
• Propose improvements and innovation for customer calls and product demonstrations based on current market trends.
• Maintain in-depth knowledge of the entire GitLab application.
• Represent GitLab as a speaker at field events or as an author in GitLab-focused publications and blogs.
• Provide opportunity strategy leveraging market and industry knowledge and trends.
• Collaborate with the product team while representing customer requirements and feedback.
• Regularly enhances GitLab documentation for clarity and accuracy as well as adding new explanations, examples and sections.
• Share subject matter expertise through Slack posts, documentation updates, communities of practice, issue and MR participation and other common GitLab collaboration mechanisms.
• Coach sales team-members on deal qualification when necessary.
• Assists with specific objectives and key result associated tasks

Senior Solutions Architect Requirements

• Extends the Associate Solutions Architect requirements
• Has experience with the additional responsibilities of a Senior Solutions Architect

Staff Solutions Architect

The Staff Solutions Architect reports to the Manger, Solutions Architect.

Staff Solutions Architect Job Grade

The Staff Solutions Architect is a grade 9

Staff Solutions Architect Responsibilities

• Extends the Senior Solutions Architect responsibilities
• Build and deliver high-value and reusable enablement content that measurably improves the team's effectiveness and execution.
• Sustain mentorship for specific members of the Solutions Architecture team to improve our technical win rate and increase iACV.
• Guide Solution Architect team members through complex customer opportunities and activity.
• Deliver product roadmap discussions.
• Architect innovative solutions leveraging 3rd party and GitLab technologies that lead to new use cases and revenue opportunities.
• Maintain a positive personal brand through GitLab-relevant participation in channels such as conferences, blogging, social media, or volunteering for external technical committees or communities of practice.

Staff Solutions Architect Requirements

• Extends the Senior Solutions Architect requirements
• Has experience with the additional responsibilities of a Staff Solutions Architect

Principal Solutions Architect

The Principal Solutions Architect reports to the Manager, Solutions Architect.

Principal Solutions Architect Job Grade

The Principal Solutions Architect is a grade 9

Principal Solutions Architect Responsibilities

• Extends the Staff Solutions Architect responsibilities
• Create and maintain relationships with customer executives that contribute to large iACV deals and customer success.
• Collaborate with product marketing, engineering, and management on a market strategy that results in an improved win rate.
• Exert influence on the overall objectives, key results, and other long-range measurable goals of the team.
• Translate 3rd party integrations into reference architectures and effectively communicates the design and it's value to customer and GitLab team members.
• Sustain assistance requests by GitLab team members as a pre-sales and technical solutions authority for the top 10% of our iACV opportunities.

Principal Solutions Architect Requirements

• Extends the Staff Solutions Architect requirements
• Has experience with the additional responsibilities of a Principal Solutions Architect

Manager, Solutions Architects

The Manager, Solutions Architects reports to the Director, Solutions Architect.

Manager, Solutions Architects Job Grade

The Manager, Solutions Architects is a grade 9

Manager, Solutions Architects Responsibilities

• Understand and evangelize GitLab's vision, strategy, and values to your team while also translating them for application to team-specific scenarios.
• Grow a highly effective team through hiring, coaching, and retention of personnel.
• Provide continuous feedback to your team members as well as peers and leaders.
• Be accountable for the overall execution of your team while tracking key performance indicators (KPIs).
• Provide clear communication to your team, peers, and leadership on all essential matters.
• Guide by example while performing the responsibilities of a solution architect to drive customer success.
• Work closely with regional sales managers on strategy.

Manager, Solutions Architects Requirements

• Extends the Solutions Architect requirements
• Experienced in mentoring people, including giving and receiving constructive feedback
• Experienced in collaborating with other managers and executing strategies
• Previous leadership experience is a plus

Senior Manager, Solutions Architects

The Senior Manager, Solutions Architects reports to the Director, Solutions Architect.

Senior Manager, Solutions Architects Job Grade

The Senior Manager, Solutions Architects is a grade 9

Senior Manager, Solutions Architects Responsibilities

• Extends the Manager, Solutions Architect responsibilities.
• Be the directly responsible person for multiple, high-impact initiatives.
• Provide cross-functional leadership on GitLab's most strategic revenue opportunities.
• Collaborate with SA and cross-departmental leadership to iterate on and improve efficiencies of GitLab practices and execution strategies.

Senior Manager, Solutions Architects Requirements

• Extends the Solutions Architect requirements
• Previous leadership experience with a proven track record of success.
• Previous leadership experience at GitLab is a plus.

Director, Solutions Architects

The Director, Solutions Architects reports to the VP, Customer Success.

Director, Solutions Architects Job Grade

The Director, Solutions Architects is a grade 10

Director, Solutions Architects Responsibilities

• Hire, mentor and develop an exceptional team of Solutions Architects.
• Develop strategies and operations to improve win rates to discovering, articulating, and demonstrating GitLab's solution to deliver on specific customer requirements and desired business outcomes.
• Identify and lead initiatives and programs to scale the organization and its operations for future growth.
• Develop processes and metrics and KPIs to improve effectiveness and efficiency of technical evaluations, workshops, demos, and proof-of-concept engagements.
• Partner with Sales, Channels and Alliances teams to align on overall strategy and priorities and provide support for specific prospects, customers and partners.
• Develop and foster relationships for key customers at the technical sponsor and executive level.
• Partner with sales leadership to align with and deliver to regional and account plans, strategies and quarterly goals.
• Collaborate with Sales and Customer Success to improve engagement models and ensure the appropriate coverage of prospects and customers.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, Marketing and Services teams to provide feedback to improve products, services and value messaging based on field experiences and feedback.
• Partner with Sales Operations to ensure efficient and ongoing enablement and development of the team.
• Be a role model for GitLab’s values and culture.

Director, Solutions Architects Requirements

• Demonstrated progressive experience leading technical sales teams (i.e., Solutions Architect and or Sales Engineering teams)
• Demonstrated progressive experience building and leading global teams of managers with team sizes of 30+ team members
• Demonstrated proficiency building and improving strategies and operations to technical assessment processes and team enablement
• Experience with software development lifecycle processes and tools as well as agile and or DevOps practices
• Knowledgeable with cloud technologies (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker), application security (SAST, DAST) and or cloud deployment models (AWS, GCP, Azure)
• Experience selling technical solutions to technical staff, management, and executive stakeholders
• Proven experience partnering with the broader organization (sales, channel, alliances, product and engineering, marketing and customer success)
• B.S. in Computer Science, Engineering or equivalent experience

Senior Director, Solutions Architects

The Senior Director, Solutions Architects reports to the VP, Customer Success.

Senior Director, Solutions Architects Job Grade

The Senior Director, Solutions Architects is a grade 11

Senior Director, Solutions Architects Responsibilities

• Extends the Director, Solutions Architect responsibilities

Senior Director, Solutions Architects Requirements

• Extends the Director, Solutions Architect requirements
• Demonstrated progressive experience leading technical sales teams (i.e., Solutions Architect and or Sales Engineering teams)
• Demonstrated progressive experience building and leading global teams of managers and directors with team sizes of 50+ team members

Specialties

Channel Solution Architect

Channel Solution Architect Responsibilities

• Engage in a technical consultancy role for channel and system integrator partners, providing technical assistance and guidance specific to the selling and service delivery readiness of Gitlab Channel partners.
• In partnership with the channel sales team, formulate and execute a sales, solution and practice strategy to exceed revenue targets through the delivery of solutions & services that drive the adoption of GitLab.
• Work with Customer Success teams (SA, TAM, Sales) to ensure the partner is acting in good faith and effectively when delivering GitLab services to a customer.
• Educate channel partners of all sizes on the value proposition of GitLab, and participate in all levels of discussions throughout the organization to ensure our solution is set up for successful deployment.
• Work on site with strategic channel partners, delivering solutions architecture consulting, technical guidance, knowledge transfer, and earn “trusted advisor status.”
• Enable the partners to provide technical evaluations via POC/POV ownership, RFP/audit support, and workshop design.
• Capture and share best-practice knowledge amongst the GitLab community and other channel solution architects.
• Author or otherwise contribute to GitLab customer-facing publications such as whitepapers, blogs, diagrams, or the GitLab Handbook.
• Build deep relationships with senior technical people within channel environments to enable them to be GitLab advocates.
• Serve as the partner advocate to other GitLab teams, including Product Development, Sales, and Marketing.
• Present GitLab platform strategy, concepts, and roadmap to technical leaders within channel partner organizations.

Channel Solution Architect Requirements

• Extends the Solutions Architect requirements
• Experience building solutions and professional services through channel partnerships
• Knowledge of all or most of the following channel services categories in the DevOps space: Consulting, Managed and or Advisory services

Alliances Solution Architect

Alliances Solution Architect Responsibilities

• Engage in a technical consultancy role for Technology Alliance partners and joint customer opportunities with these partners.
• Build and deliver solutions, reference architectures and demos highlighting the Alliance partners' technologies as they work with GitLab.
• Be a subject matter expert within an area of focus, with exceptional soft / public speaking skills and “hands on the keyboard depth”
• Proactively identify market demand with solutioning. Engage as a lead SME in customer engagements including pitches, solution envisioning, proposal development and estimate preparation as related to alliance partner technologies.
• Enable Alliance partner's Go-To-Market team (e.g., SA's, AEs, and Product Marketing) on GitLab's solution and value.
• As part of internal and external evangelism, communicate, grow and evolve awareness of applicable partner technology, services, success stories, market trends and best practices.
• Build deep relationships with senior technical people within partnerships to enable them to be GitLab advocates.
• Author or otherwise contribute to GitLab customer-facing publications such as whitepapers, blogs, diagrams, or the GitLab Handbook.
• Tighten feedback loops from the Field to R&D, Marketing and Customer Success. Proactively break down silos to envision and co-create products with cross-team, cross-company communication and collaboration.

Alliances Solution Architect Requirements

• Extends the Solutions Architect requirements
• Technical background with key partnerships such as AWS, GCP, Azure, VMware, and Hashicorp. Certification in AWS/GCP/Azure is a plus
• Knowledge of all or most of the following categories in the DevOps space: Consulting, Integration, and or Technical Advisory.
• Ability to breakdown the Alliance team's Go-To-Market strategy into technical initiatives and drive them forward.

Director, Channel & Alliances Solutions Architects

GitLab’s Director, Alliances & Channels Solution Architects provides strategic vision and builds and develops an exceptional team of partner-focused Solution Architects. This person leads the team responsible for providing technical consultancy for channel and alliance partners of all types. Partnering closely with Sales, Channel / Alliances, and Customer Success teams, this leader will create strategies and operations to effectively and efficiently accelerate GitLab’s growth by continuously improving the GitLab partner ecosystem.

Director, Channel & Alliances Solutions Architects Responsibilities

• Hire, mentor and develop an exceptional team of Solutions Architects.
• Develop strategies and operations to improve GitLab partner practices and solutions as they pertain to delivering GitLab-based solutions for our customers.
• Lead by example through direct channel and alliance partner engagement while growing the team.
• Identify and lead initiatives and programs to scale the organization and its operations for future growth.
• Develop processes and metrics and KPIs to improve effectiveness and efficiency of partner engagements.
• Partner with Sales, Customer Success, Channels, and Alliances teams to align on overall strategy and priorities and provide support for specific partners and strategic revenue opportunities.
• Develop and foster relationships for key partners at the technical sponsor and executive level.
• Partner with channel and alliance sales team leadership to align with and deliver to regional and partner plans, strategies and quarterly goals.
• Collaborate with Sales and Customer Success to improve GitLab's ability to leverage partners to drive Net ARR.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Services teams to provide feedback to improve products, services and value messaging based on partner experiences and feedback.
• Partner with Sales Operations to ensure efficient and ongoing enablement and development of the team.
• Be a role model for GitLab’s values and culture.

Director, Channel & Alliances Solutions Architects Requirements

• Extends the Director, Solutions Architects requirements.

Public Sector Solutions Architect

Public Sector Solutions Architect Responsibilities

• Extends the Solutions Architect responsibilities.
• Participate in conferences and trade shows and interacting with government customers in attendance.
• Contribute to the creation of case studies, white papers, and media articles for government customers and or partner.
• Consistently provide world-class customer service during pre-sales, implementation, and post-sales activities.
• Manage all technical aspects of the sales cycle: creating high-quality professional presentations, custom demos, proof of concepts, deliver technical deep-dive sessions & workshops, differentiate GitLab from alternative solutions, answering RFI, RFPs, etc.
• TS/SCI Security Clearance
• Must be located in the Washington DC metro area
• Knowledge and demonstrated progressive experience with Federal customers
• Ability to travel up to 50%
• Understand mono-repo and distributed-repo approaches.

Public Sector Solutions Architect Requirements

• Extends the Solutions Architect requirements

Commercial Solutions Architect

Commercial Solutions Architect Responsibilities

• The responsibilities for a Commercial Solutions Architect are the same as a Solutions Architect but support the Commercial Sales by focusing on SMB and Mid-Market customers.

Commercial Solutions Architect Requirements

• The requirements for a Commercial Solutions Architect are the same as a Solutions Architect.

Field CTO

Field CTO Responsibilties

• Extends the responsibilities of Principal Solutions Architect
• Provide executive-level, thought leadership on strategic opportunities (i.e., new logo and growth)
• Curate and manage field feedback, while collaborating with the product team on roadmap and issue prioritization
• Scale and grow regional-level expertise within the field (SAL/AE,SA,TAM) through contributions to enablement and content
• Act as a prospect / customer advocate on DevSecOps transformation initiatives

Field CTO Requirements

• Extends the requirements of Principal Solutions Architect
• Significant experience with architecture of enterprise software development workflow
• Experience as CTO is a plus
• Experience delivering information/Cyber Security and compliance related solutions and assessments
• Experience with software development tools, practices, and methodologies
• Strong verbal and written skills with a strong ability to articulate and communicate strategies to all levels in an organization (i.e., executive to staff engineer)
• Ability to use GitLab, including learning GitLab as part of the role

Field Security Officer

Field Security Officer Responsibilities

• Extends the responsibilities of Principal Solutions Architect
• Provide executive-level, security-related thought leadership on strategic opportunities (i.e., new logo and growth)
• Own CISO, CSO, and/or chief security architect relationships in key accounts while providing credible, leading-edge security guidance to help orchestrate their desired outcomes
• Assist account teams with GitLab product security and compliance expertise in order to drive ARR for GitLab while also providing direction on opportunity and account strategies related to selling and expanding with security (e.g., up-tier)
• Act as a prospect / customer advocate on security related matters
• Curate and manage security related field feedback, while collaborating with the product team on issue prioritization
• Contribute to security sales strategy and playbooks in while collaborating with marketing and product teams
• Scale and grow regional-level expertise within the field (SAL/AE,SA,TAM) through contributions to enablement and content
• Bootstrap security Communities of Practice at GitLab for cross-functional collaboration in order to drive ARR for GitLab

Field Security Officer Requirements

• Extends the requirements of Principal Solutions Architect
• Significant experience with information technology security is preferred
• Experience as CISO/CSO is a plus
• Experience delivering information/Cyber Security and compliance related solutions and assessments
• Experience with software development tools, practices, and methodologies
• Experience with application vulnerability management and associated regulations (i.e. PCI DSS, HIPAA, NIST 800-731 and more) and tools (i.e. SAST, DAST, SCA)
• Strong verbal and written skills with a strong ability to articulate and communicate strategies to all levels in an organization (i.e., executive to staff engineer)
• Ability to use GitLab, including learning GitLab as part of the role

Demo Engineer

Demo Engineer Responsibilities

• Work collaboratively with Solutions Architecture, Marketing, Field Enablement, and Product Management to curate, create, and maintain Solutions Architecture lead workshops, demonstrations, and other artifacts leveraged during pre-sales activities
• Continuously test and update collateral to reflect GitLab product changes per release
• Deliver prospect and customer-facing workshops and demonstrations using frequently leveraged artifacts
• Collaborate with the Demo Systems Engineering team to ensure GitLab instances are configured and available for demonstrations and workshops
• Ensure demo data and stories align to key business and marketing messaging
• Design creative new ways to highlight GitLab functionality
• Ensure systems contain reliable, current data for repeatability in storytelling
• Document and communicate demo and workshop artifact availability and usage guidance

Demo Engineer Requirements

• Ideal candidates will have IT industry, software development, and technical sales experience
• Deep knowledge of software development lifecycle
• Software development experience
• Understanding of continuous integration, continuous deployment, and cloud-native technology
• Experience with waterfall, Agile (SCRUM, Kanban, etc.) and able to discuss workflows for different software development processes
• Experience with modern development practices strongly preferred, including Kubernetes, Docker, Package Management, Application Security (SAST, DAST), Cloud infrastructure, and serverless
• Excellent time management and self-organization skills while performing a wide range of tasks and quickly pivoting to respond to higher priorities
• Successful completion of a background check
• Ability to use GitLab

Performance Indicators

As with all roles in the Sales Department, the Solutions Archtiect job family participates in a subset the Sales KPIs.

• IACV versus Plan
• Win Rate

Career Ladder

A Solution Architect can progress through the various individual contributor levels or leadership roles and associated levels.

Hiring Process

Candidates can expect the hiring process to follow the order below. 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.

Individual Contributor Hiring Process:

• Selected candidates will be invited to schedule a screening call with our Global Recruiters.
• Next, candidates will be invited to schedule a first interview with the SA team Manager.
• Candidates may be invited to schedule an interview with a Solutions Architect peer or other SA team Manager.
• Then, candidates will be required to deliver a demo of GitLab to a panel of Customer Success attendees using the Demo Guide.
• Candidates may be invited to additional interviews.
• Successful candidates will be made an offer after references are verified.

Management Hiring Process:

• Selected candidates will be invited to schedule a screening call with our Global Recruiters.
• Next, candidates will be invited to schedule a first interview with a Customer Success VP or Director.
• Candidate will then schedule an interview with an SA management peer.
• Then, candidates will present a business plan to include 30/60/90 day approach, outcomes, and metrics.
• Candidates may be invited to additional interviews.
• Successful candidates will be made an offer after references are verified.

Additional details about our process can be found on our hiring page.

Compensation

Compensation Calculator

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, Friends and Family 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!