Director of Engineering, Security Governance
Job description
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 Director of Engineering, Security Governance, you will oversee a critical part of GitLab's AI-powered DevSecOps platform: the systems we build to help customers and teams manage security policy, compliance, and AI governance at scale. You'll work at the intersection of platform security, product-led growth, and AI safety, reporting to the VP of Engineering, Security. You will guide six teams, shape the engineering vision and roadmap for this group, and help define how we and our customers govern AI-enabled and software delivery workflows through infrastructure built for correctness, scalability, and auditability.
Some examples of our projects:
- Flow ID and governance capabilities that support platform-wide AI oversight
- Auditing for the DevSecOps AI Platform (DAP) and Software Factory, the MCP Catalog, and governance dashboards
What you’ll do
- Set the engineering vision and multi-quarter roadmap across six teams focused on security policy enforcement, compliance management, security feature adoption, and AI governance, with clear quarterly outcomes for delivery and adoption.
- Lead and grow a distributed engineering organization that includes engineering managers and individual contributors, with success measured by team performance, engagement, and career development outcomes.
- Drive architectural decisions for policy enforcement, compliance, and AI governance systems to improve correctness, scalability, and auditability, with success measured by reliability and audit readiness.
- Partner with product management to define priorities and shape requirements for platform capabilities used by security-focused enterprise customers, with a focus on adoption and roadmap delivery.
- Own platform-wide AI governance infrastructure, including Flow ID, auditing for the DevSecOps AI Platform (DAP) and Software Factory, the MCP Catalog, and governance dashboards.
- Represent the Security Governance group in cross-functional discussions, executive reviews, and customer conversations.
- Establish engineering standards across delivery, observability, incident response, and code quality to improve delivery predictability, observability coverage, and incident response effectiveness.
- Contribute to GitLab's transparent, async-first way of working through issues, merge requests, and the GitLab handbook.
What you’ll bring
- Experience leading engineering organizations that include multiple teams and managers.
- Strong understanding of security fundamentals, including policy enforcement, compliance frameworks such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, and FedRAMP, and software supply chain security.
- Experience building platform-level or infrastructure-level systems in a SaaS or DevSecOps environment.
- Ability to partner closely with product management on roadmap planning, prioritization, and requirements.
- Strong written communication skills and experience leading in a remote, async-first environment.
- Collaborative leadership style that supports teams, values clear feedback, and aligns with GitLab's values.
- Familiarity with AI governance topics such as auditability, access control, model or tool catalogs, and responsible AI deployment, or transferable experience from related governance domains.
- Exposure to MCP, AI agent orchestration tooling, enterprise regulatory environments, or open source contribution and maintainer work is useful but not required.
About the team
The Security Governance group is a distributed organization that works asynchronously across regions and partners closely with product management and other cross-functional stakeholders. We help GitLab meet the needs of security-conscious enterprises by delivering governance capabilities with a strong focus on usability and operational excellence. For more on how GitLab works, see the GitLab handbook at Sec Section Handbook Page.
The base salary range for this role’s listed level is currently for residents of the United States only. This range is intended to reflect the role's base salary rate in locations throughout the US. Grade level and salary ranges are determined through interviews and a review of education, experience, knowledge, skills, abilities of the applicant, equity with other team members, alignment with market data, and geographic location. The base salary range does not include any bonuses, equity, or benefits. See more information on our benefits and equity. Sales roles are also eligible for incentive pay targeted at up to 100% of the offered base salary.
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.
Country Hiring Guidelines: GitLab hires new team members in countries around the world. All of our roles are remote, however some roles may carry specific location-based eligibility requirements. Our Talent Acquisition team can help answer any questions about location after starting the recruiting process.
Privacy Policy: Please review our Recruitment Privacy Policy. Your privacy is important to us.
GitLab is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. GitLab’s policies and practices relating to recruitment, employment, career development and advancement, promotion, and retirement are based solely on merit, regardless 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 (including family medical history), discharge status from the military, protected veteran status (which includes disabled veterans, recently separated veterans, active duty wartime or campaign badge veterans, and Armed Forces service medal veterans), or any other basis protected by law. GitLab will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics. See also GitLab’s EEO Policy and EEO is the Law. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know during the recruiting process.