Engineering Manager - Nonlinear Productivity (Friction Elimination & Solutions) at GitLab

About GitLab: The DevSecOps Intelligent Orchestration Platform

GitLab is a leading intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps, empowering organizations to significantly boost developer productivity, enhance operational efficiency, mitigate security and compliance risks, and accelerate digital transformation. Trusted by over 50 million registered users and more than 50% of Fortune 100 companies, GitLab helps teams ship superior, more secure software with greater speed. Our company culture mirrors our product principles, embracing AI as a crucial productivity multiplier. All team members are expected to integrate AI into their daily workflows to drive efficiency, foster innovation, and maximize impact.

At GitLab, careers thrive, innovation flourishes, and every voice is valued. Our high performance culture is built on strong values and continuous knowledge exchange, enabling team members to reach their full potential through collaboration with industry leaders on complex problem solving. Join us in co-creating the future of software development.

An overview of this role

As the Engineering Manager for Nonlinear Productivity (Friction Elimination & Solutions) at GitLab, you will play a pivotal role in decoupling engineering output from headcount. This position focuses on proactive initiatives, including thorough reviews of GitLab's software development lifecycle (SDLC) and code generation workflows. Your goal will be to identify recurring points of friction, develop and test durable solutions, and pinpoint internal innovations that have the potential to evolve into customer facing products.

Reporting to a Senior Manager or Director within Nonlinear Productivity, this role operates at the intersection of engineering, developer productivity, AI assisted development, and product strategy. You will be responsible for creating data backed insights to identify high leverage technical intervention points, prototyping solutions, driving the adoption of validated fixes internally, and building compelling business cases for productizing successful outcomes.

What you'll do

• Proactively survey GitLab’s internal software development lifecycle and code generation workflows to identify structural friction early. Develop a data backed perspective on where technical interventions will yield the highest leverage.
• Evaluate various options for each opportunity, including emerging agentic and AI tooling, considering factors like cost, risk, and long term durability.
• Establish prototypes and conduct direct architecture reviews to confirm that proposed fixes improve target metrics and represent sustainable solutions before committing to broader engineering investments.
• Build and manage a small, high caliber team, or operate as a hands on working manager, prioritizing talent density over sheer headcount.
• Drive validated fixes from the prototype stage to internal adoption by collaborating with affected teams, ensuring solutions are widely used, relied upon, and properly maintained.
• In partnership with the product team, build the technical and business case for productizing internal fixes that demonstrate durability and broad applicability.
• Document reusable learnings to ensure successful internal fixes are codified and do not remain as tribal knowledge.
• Report measurable impact through changes in key metrics and progress in transforming internal fixes into products, providing clear insights into what worked and what did not.

What you'll bring

• Proficiency in using GitLab.
• A proven track record of identifying and delivering effective technical solutions for developer productivity, continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD), or platform related friction. This includes proactively addressing problems before they are formally assigned.
• Comfort operating in highly ambiguous environments without an existing backlog, demonstrating the ability to define and build the roadmap rather than simply executing one provided.
• Prior people management experience, including roles in a small team or a hands on working manager capacity.
• Sufficient technical depth to directly evaluate and prototype solutions, rather than solely delegating these tasks.
• Strong product judgment to assess the viability of an internal tool as a robust solution for external, paying customers.
• Familiarity with agentic or AI assisted development tooling.
• Experience in transitioning an internal tool into an external, customer facing product is a significant advantage.

About the team

The Nonlinear Productivity team is dedicated to enhancing how GitLab engineers, and increasingly AI agents, build, review, and ship code. We focus on testing and scaling durable technical fixes to improve our internal engineering output.

Career ladder

In this role, you have the potential to advance to Senior Manager, Nonlinear Productivity, which entails an expanded mandate across the full range of team metrics used to track improvements. Further details about our hiring process can be found on our hiring page.

How GitLab Supports Full-Time Employees

• Comprehensive benefits supporting your health, finances, and overall well being.
• Flexible Paid Time Off.
• Access to Team Member Resource Groups.
• Equity Compensation & Employee Stock Purchase Plan.
• Growth and Development Fund for continuous learning.
• Paid Parental Leave.

GitLab welcomes applications from candidates with diverse experience levels; many successful applicants do not meet every single requirement. We encourage individuals from underrepresented groups to apply, even if they do not meet every qualification, as studies show they are less likely to apply unless they match all criteria. If you are enthusiastic about this role, please apply and allow our recruiters to evaluate your application.

Country Hiring Guidelines: GitLab employs new team members globally. While all our roles are remote, some may have specific location based eligibility requirements. Our Talent Acquisition team can clarify any location related questions during the recruiting process.

Privacy Policy: Please review our Recruitment Privacy Policy. Your privacy is important to us. GitLab is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. Our policies and practices regarding recruitment, employment, career development, promotion, and retirement are merit based, without discrimination on the basis 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, military discharge status, protected veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic. GitLab strictly prohibits discrimination or harassment based on these characteristics. Refer to GitLab’s EEO Policy and EEO is the Law. If you require accommodation due to a disability or special need, please inform us during the recruiting process.