Engineering Manager - Nonlinear Productivity (Friction Elimination & Solutions)

GitLab is the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps. GitLab enables organizations to increase developer productivity, improve operational efficiency, reduce security and compliance risk, and accelerate digital transformation. More than 50 million registered users and more than 50% of the Fortune 100* trust GitLab to ship better, more secure software faster.

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.

*Fortune 500® is a registered trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, used under license. Claim based on GitLab data. Fortune 100 refers to the top 20% ranked companies in the 2025 Fortune 500 list, published in June 2025. Fortune and Fortune Media IP Limited are not affiliated with, and do not endorse products or services of GitLab.

An overview of this role

As Manager, Engineering, Nonlinear Productivity (Friction Elimination & Solutions), you’ll help GitLab break the linear relationship between headcount and engineering output. In this role, 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.

You’ll report to the Senior Manager or Director, Nonlinear Productivity and work at the intersection of engineering, developer productivity, AI-assisted development, and product. You’ll build a data-backed view of where technical interventions can have the highest leverage, test solutions through prototypes, drive validated fixes into internal adoption, and help build the case for productizing the strongest outcomes.

What you’ll do

• 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.

What you’ll bring

• 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.

About the team

The Nonlinear Productivity team improves how GitLab engineers, and increasingly agents, build, review, and ship code. We test and scale durable technical fixes that improve our internal engineering output. 

Career ladder

In this role, you can progress to Senior Manager, Nonlinear Productivity, with an expanded mandate across the full set of team metrics we use to track improvement.

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

How GitLab Supports Full-Time Employees

• 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 

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.

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