Senior Engineering Manager, DevEx

About This RoleAI processing…

Key Responsibilities

• 1
  Lead engineering teams working on developer tooling and platform capabilities that support faster, more consistent software delivery across GitLab, measured through improvements in build times, observability, and delivery consistency.
• 2
  Drive a Kubernetes-first platform vision that supports both cloud and self-managed environments, including the tradeoffs needed for on-prem delivery.
• 3
  Guide technical and organizational decisions across areas such as developer environments, packaging, local and hosted testing workflows, and integration with broader platform efforts.
• 4
  Collaborate closely with engineering leaders, staff engineers, and adjacent teams to ensure DevEx investments connect cleanly with platform architecture and operational needs.
• 5
  Coach and develop the engineering managers reporting to you, partnering with them on team health, performance, prioritization, and hiring, including addressing performance concerns and shaping teams for future needs.
• 6
  Develop clear direction from high-level strategy, turning broad platform goals into actionable roadmaps with defined milestones and success metrics that teams can execute with ownership.
• 7
  Support the adoption of AI-assisted development practices by helping teams use new tools thoughtfully while maintaining engineering quality.
• 8
  Improve execution by creating clarity, encouraging strong technical discussion, and helping teams make decisions and keep moving when requirements evolve, with success measured by delivery predictability and cycle time improvements.

Requirements

• Experience managing engineering managers and coaching them on execution, team health, hiring, and performance.
• Experience leading distributed engineering teams through change and ambiguity while building clarity, accountability, and momentum.
• Strong technical grounding in Kubernetes platforms, including familiarity with concepts and interfaces such as Services, container network interface, and API gateways.
• Working knowledge of Helm and containerized delivery models, especially where platform choices affect both developer experience and production outcomes.
• Experience with self-managed, on-prem, or bare metal environments (OpenShift, OpenStack, Proxmox, etc.), and an understanding of how they differ from cloud-first assumptions.
• Ability to evaluate technical tradeoffs and contribute informed judgment on platform architecture and cross-team system integration.
• Hands-on experience with CLI-based AI coding tools, with judgment to help teams adopt them thoughtfully while maintaining engineering standards.
• Relevant background in platform engineering, infrastructure, site reliability engineering, or developer productivity, including designing team structures and organizational approaches.

Perks & Benefits