Senior Director, Technical Program Management

An overview of this role

As a Senior Director, Technical Program Management, you will oversee GitLab’s Engineering technical program management function and help the Engineering division deliver complex, high-impact work with more clarity, consistency, and speed. Reporting directly to the Chief Technology Officer, you’ll guide an established team of Technical Program Managers, shape the operating model for the function, and drive strategic programs that span horizontal productivity initiatives (Duo Agent Platform), customer-facing feature delivery, Customer Zero adoption, and security vulnerability remediation.

What you’ll do

• Lead a global team of Technical Program Managers aligned to Engineering verticals including AI, Infrastructure, Data and Product Engineering.
• Own the technical program management operating model, including team structure, hiring approach, and career framework for the function.
• Drive end-to-end delivery of strategic cross-functional programs across infrastructure, security, product, and go-to-market teams.
• Define program scope, milestones, success criteria, and staffing plans to move work from ambiguity to clear execution.
• Establish program metrics focused on non-linear productivity gains and build a consistent, data-led reporting practice.
• Partner with Engineering counterparts as an accountability partner for priorities, key choices, and follow-through.
• Influence strategic planning for staffing, timelines, and cross-organizational priorities.
• Create a reliable cadence for initiative reviews, prioritization, and staffing management across the technical program management function.

What you’ll bring

• Experience in technical program management, engineering leadership, or a combination of both in complex technical organizations.
• Background as an engineer or strong technical foundation that builds credibility with engineering teams and stakeholders.
• Experience building, scaling, and developing a technical program management function or team.
• Track record delivering complex programs across multiple teams with urgency and a clear focus on customer impact.
• Ability to define meaningful program metrics, use data to identify gaps, and present clear recommendations.
• Strength in written and asynchronous communication within a distributed, all-remote environment.
• Experience working across infrastructure, security, and platform engineering domains.
• Ability to influence without formal authority and collaborate effectively with engineering, product, marketing, sales, and legal teams, including through transferable experience from adjacent leadership paths.

About the team

The Engineering technical program management function supports programs across nearly every stage of GitLab by partnering with Engineering leaders in verticals aligned to vice president areas. We work asynchronously across regions and focus on creating clear execution paths for broad, interdependent work across GitLab.