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Technical Chief of Staff to the CTO

Remote, US

GitLab is an open-core software company that develops the most comprehensive AI-powered DevSecOps Platform, used by more than 100,000 organizations. Our mission is to enable everyone to contribute to and co-create the software that powers our world. When everyone can contribute, consumers become contributors, significantly accelerating human progress. Our platform unites teams and organizations, breaking down barriers and redefining what's possible in software development. Thanks to products like Duo Enterprise and Duo Agent Platform, customers get AI benefits at every stage of the SDLC. 

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. GitLab 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.

An overview of this role

As the Technical Chief of Staff to the CTO, you'll scale the impact of GitLab's engineering leadership by closing the gap between technical vision and day-to-day execution. You'll partner closely with the CTO, executive leadership team, and senior engineers to align a multi-year technical vision with product strategy. You'll translate decisions into clear operating mechanisms and make sure they're documented in GitLab's Handbook to support our all-remote, asynchronous culture. You'll lead initiatives such as AI transformation and internal GitLab AI and large language model (LLM) feature testing. You'll define and implement unified metric frameworks to improve R&D quality and efficiency. You'll orchestrate the rhythm of business for the engineering organization, including staff meetings, quarterly business reviews, and offsites. In your first year, you'll be expected to establish trusted proxy relationships on behalf of the CTO, drive measurable improvements in engineering velocity and organizational health, and act as a key liaison for high-stakes moments, including board materials, M&A technical diligence, and major security or infrastructure incidents.

Some examples of our projects:

  • Partner with the PMO organization to eliminate friction, ensuring they can achieve the business outcomes of strategic programs such as Customer Zero.
  • Work with the architecture team and ELT to define a "North Star" that aligns with the product vision and connects directly to individual teams.

What you'll do

  • Lead the execution of the CTO's 3-year technical vision by aligning engineering and product strategy with clear priorities and accountable owners.
  • Drive the technical narrative and content for board materials, investor decks, and keynotes while owning competitive and market intelligence, including technical due diligence for potential acquisitions, to inform executive decisions and external storytelling.
  • Guard and evolve the CTO's operating model by documenting decisions and processes in the GitLab Handbook and orchestrating the rhythm of business (staff meetings, quarterly business reviews, and offsites) to drive clear decisions, follow-through, and fewer unnecessary meetings.
  • Lead GitLab's internal AI transformation as "Customer Zero," ensuring engineering teams adopt and rigorously test GitLab's AI and LLM capabilities and provide actionable feedback to Product.
  • Implement and maintain standardized R&D metric frameworks such as DORA and SPACE to track and improve engineering quality, velocity, and efficiency.
  • Partner with Finance, the executive leadership team, and the FinOps Technical Program Manager to steward the engineering budget and optimize infrastructure and cloud spend.
  • Define and monitor organizational health metrics, collaborating with the People team on engagement, retention, and talent strategies while leading communication and change management for organizational pivots aligned with GitLab's values and mission across global teams.
  • Serve as a trusted advisor and proxy to the CTO by synthesizing complex technical proposals into clear decision options, resolving executive-level escalations, unblocking cross-functional dependencies, and acting as a primary liaison during major security incidents or critical infrastructure issues, coordinating technical and executive communication to internal and external stakeholders.

What you'll bring

  • Executive Operations: 12+ years of experience, including 3+ years as a direct partner to an executive, managing an R&D organization of 500–1,000+ members.
  • Strategic Influence: Proven track record of drafting Board of Directors materials or lead-managing annual strategic planning and long-range technical roadmaps.
  • Massive Scale Execution: Experience leading company-wide technical programs (e.g., migrations, security mandates) that impacted 1,000+ engineers and required cross-functional alignment across 5+ departments.
  • Architectural Depth: Previous experience as a Director of Engineering or Principal TPM overseeing global scale high-availability systems (99.99%+), with the ability to bridge deep technical trade-offs and business ROI.
  • Data-Driven Rigor: Expert-level implementation of DORA or SPACE frameworks, with a history of using these metrics to drive measurable improvements in developer productivity or system reliability.
  • Organizational Design: Experience leading org-wide change management, including headcount allocation and talent strategy for departments with budgets exceeding $50M+.
  • Communication Mastery: Exceptional ability to synthesize complex technical "noise" into 1-page executive briefs and drive alignment in a high-scale, asynchronous/distributed work environment.

About the team

You'll be part of a small, high-impact group that connects engineering, product, finance, and people partners. We share context across senior leaders, pressure-test ideas, and help each other tackle complex technical and organizational problems. Team members come from varied backgrounds in engineering, product management, and operations, and we rely on clear writing, direct feedback, and a bias for iteration. You'll have peers who offer perspective, collaboration, and support as you take on ambiguous, high-impact work.

The base salary range for this role’s listed level is currently for residents of the United States only. This range is intended to reflect the role's base salary rate in locations throughout the US. Grade level and salary ranges are determined through interviews and a review of education, experience, knowledge, skills, abilities of the applicant, equity with other team members, alignment with market data, and geographic location. The base salary range does not include any bonuses, equity, or benefits. See more information on our benefits and equity. Sales roles are also eligible for incentive pay targeted at up to 100% of the offered base salary.

United States Salary Range

$167,000 - $313,000 USD

How GitLab will support you

Please note that we welcome interest from candidates with varying levels of experience; many successful candidates do not meet every single requirement. Additionally, studies have shown that people from underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to a job unless they meet every single qualification. If you're excited about this role, please apply and allow our recruiters to assess your application.

Country Hiring Guidelines: GitLab hires new team members in countries around the world. All of our roles are remote, however some roles may carry specific location-based eligibility requirements. Our Talent Acquisition team can help answer any questions about location after starting the recruiting process.  

Privacy Policy: Please review our Recruitment Privacy Policy. Your privacy is important to us.

GitLab is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. GitLab’s policies and practices relating to recruitment, employment, career development and advancement, promotion, and retirement are based solely on merit, regardless of race, color, religion, ancestry, sex (including pregnancy, lactation, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression), national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, mental or physical disability, genetic information (including family medical history), discharge status from the military, protected veteran status (which includes disabled veterans, recently separated veterans, active duty wartime or campaign badge veterans, and Armed Forces service medal veterans), or any other basis protected by law. GitLab will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics. See also GitLab’s EEO Policy and EEO is the Law. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know during the recruiting process.

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