# Senior Engineering Manager, Non-Linear Productivity

**Company:** [GitLab](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/gitlab)
**Location:** Remote
**Role:** Engineering Management
**Salary:** $190k – $245k/yr
**Experience:** 5+ years
**Skills:** CI/CD, build systems, gitlab ci/cd, pipeline reliability, pipeline latency, flaky tests, software development life cycle, infrastructure reliability, ai-assisted development, metrics instrumentation
**Posted:** 2026-08-10

> Leads a small, high-autonomy engineering team focused on identifying and fixing systemic friction in GitLab’s software delivery lifecycle. The role combines team building, hands-on CI/CD and build-system investigation, metrics-driven experimentation, and executive-level communication.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities

### Vision & Strategy
- Define and refine the operating model for a non-linear productivity pilot, including how friction is diagnosed and fixes are prioritized against MRPM, pipeline success rate, and pipeline latency.
- Identify and prioritize high-leverage productivity opportunities across the SDLC, including flaky tests, review latency, pipeline reliability, tooling gaps, and context loss for human and agentic contributors.
- Translate an ambiguous mandate into a concrete, time-boxed roadmap with milestones for a three-month pilot.

### Team Building & Leadership
- Recruit and select four exceptional engineers for the pilot squad.
- Negotiate allocation models with engineers' current engineering managers.
- Set technical direction and working norms for a small, fast-moving team.
- Mentor engineers in root-cause diagnosis and shift-left thinking.

### Technical Exploration & Experimentation
- Instrument and baseline MRPM, pipeline success rate, and pipeline latency.
- Diagnose high-leverage friction points and validate hypotheses with data.
- Design and implement compounding fixes, including shift-left quality improvements, tooling investments, and better context and interfaces for humans and agents.
- Review architecture, investigate pipeline internals, and unblock difficult technical problems.

### Internal Adoption & Productivity
- Own high-impact friction areas from diagnosis through fix to measurable metric movement.
- Partner with affected engineering teams to drive trust, adoption, and durability.
- Report metric movement honestly, including unsuccessful bets.
- Codify reusable patterns and playbooks for organization-wide adoption.

### Operations, Risk & Enablement
- Establish impact reporting for engineering managers and leadership, focused on metric movement.
- Ensure fixes degrade gracefully and do not introduce reliability risks into CI/CD systems.
- Define graduation criteria for the pilot and build an evidence-based case for or against a permanent function.

## Requirements
- Track record leading small, high-autonomy engineering teams, ideally in developer productivity, CI/CD, platform, or infrastructure reliability.
- Deep familiarity with CI/CD and build systems, including pipeline flakiness, performance, success rates, and latency.
- Demonstrated root-cause orientation and a high bar for engineering talent.
- Comfort with metrics-driven accountability and transparent reporting.
- Strong executive-level communication.

## Nice to Have
- Experience with agentic or AI-assisted development workflows.
- Experience running a defined-window pilot or 0-to-1 initiative with explicit success criteria.
- Familiarity with GitLab CI/CD internals or equivalent depth with a large-scale build and test system.

## Compensation & Benefits
- United States base salary range: **$190,000–$245,000 USD**.
- Base salary excludes bonuses, equity, and benefits.
- Benefits include flexible paid time off, team member resource groups, equity compensation, an employee stock purchase plan, a growth and development fund, and parental leave.

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