Director, Engineering, Platform Operations & Productivity

Higlobe, Inc.; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 8,000,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible Paid Time Off

Equity Compensation

Parental Leave

Growth and Development Fund

Team Member Resource Groups

Job summary

GitLab Bengaluru seeks a Director, Engineering, Platform Operations & Productivity who will own three functions requiring hands‑on technical depth, not just people management. You’ll drive reliable outcomes with clear metrics and operating rhythms.

You’ll lead Git & Gitaly Operations, Nonlinear Productivity, and Platform Staff, building a small senior team that uses AI‑assisted tools to bootstrap initiatives, handle high‑impact requests, and crisis responses with direct technical judgment.

Qualifications

• Working knowledge of GitLab's development workflows and platform capabilities.
• Hands‑on experience designing and shipping distributed systems.
• Track record running engineering operations at meaningful scale.
• Track record driving measurable engineering productivity improvements across teams.
• Experience with AI‑assisted development tools.
• People management across multiple managers or functions.
• Ability to context-switch across infrastructure operations, developer productivity, and crisis response.
• Staffing decisions that keep a high‑leverage small team.

Responsibilities

• Own outcomes for Git & Gitaly Operations, including hiring and developing the Manager, Git & Gitaly Operations, and holding the function to its reliability bar.
• Own outcomes for Nonlinear Productivity, including hiring and developing the Manager, Nonlinear Productivity, and holding the function to measurable metric movement.
• Build and oversee Platform Staff directly as a small, senior team that uses AI‑assisted tools as a standard part of its work.
• Assess, case by case, what Platform Staff picks up, such as a new team that needs bootstrapping or a crisis that needs direct involvement.
• Assess when Platform Staff should hand work off to a permanent team once it's stable.
• Set the technical bar by reviewing distributed systems designs, fixes, and crisis plans.
• Build operating rhythms and metrics to keep all three functions running predictably and avoid overwork.
• Represent all three functions to peer engineering stakeholders, and step in front of customers during mid‑crisis.

Skills

Git & Gitaly ops

Distributed systems design

Engineering operations

Productivity improvements

AI-assisted tooling

People management

Cross‑functional context-switch

Staffing decisions (small teams)

Job description

An overview of this role

As Director, Engineering, Platform Operations & Productivity, you'll own three functions that all require hands‑on technical depth, not just people management.

Platform Staff is a small, senior, AI‑native team that moves to wherever the organization needs the most leverage, from standing up early scaffolding for an initiative, to taking on a high‑impact customer request that doesn't fit any existing team's charter, to stepping directly into a production crisis until it's resolved.

This role is for a technical engineering director who has personally built distributed systems, not only managed people who did. You'll use clear metrics, strong operating rhythms, and direct technical judgment so these teams deliver predictable outcomes without relying on one‑person heroics.

What you’ll do

• Own outcomes for Git & Gitaly Operations, including hiring and developing the Manager, Git & Gitaly Operations, and holding the function to its reliability bar across Self‑Managed, GitLab Dedicated, and SaaS.
• Own outcomes for Nonlinear Productivity, also known as Friction Elimination, including hiring and developing the Manager, Nonlinear Productivity, and holding the function to measurable metric movement rather than activity.
• Build and oversee Platform Staff directly as a small, senior team that uses AI‑assisted tools as a standard part of its work.
• Assess, case by case, what Platform Staff picks up, such as a new team that needs bootstrapping, a customer request too specific for any existing team's charter, or a crisis that needs someone in the room immediately.
• Assess when Platform Staff should hand work off to a permanent team once it's stable.
• Set the technical bar across all three functions by personally reviewing distributed systems designs, friction‑elimination fixes, and crisis management plans with equal depth.
• Build the operating rhythm and metrics that keep all three functions running predictably, so none of them relies on any one person working unsustainable hours.
• Represent all three functions to peer engineering stakeholders, and step in front of customers directly when Platform Staff is engaged mid‑crisis.

What you’ll bring

• Working knowledge of GitLab's development workflows and platform capabilities so you can assess productivity friction, operational trade‑offs, and team needs in context.
• Hands‑on experience designing and shipping distributed systems personally, not only through teams you've managed.
• A track record running highly effective engineering operations, including production reliability and incident management, at meaningful scale.
• A track record driving measurable engineering productivity improvements across more than one team or organization.
• Experience with AI‑assisted development tools, and sound judgment about when they help a small team do work that would otherwise require a larger team.
• People management experience across multiple managers or functions at once.
• Ability to context‑switch effectively across genuinely different problem types, including infrastructure operations, developer productivity, and ad hoc crisis response, sometimes in the same week.
• A track record making staffing decisions that keep a high‑leverage team intentionally small, and building alignment around those decisions rather than growing the team by default.

About the team

We work across three connected platform and productivity functions. Through Git & Gitaly Operations, we are responsible for the production reliability of the infrastructure layer underneath GitLab's own version control system.

Through Nonlinear Productivity, we drive measurable improvements to GitLab's software development lifecycle and code‑generation workflows. Through Platform Staff, we provide focused senior engineering capacity for high‑leverage work that needs direct ownership before it can be stabilized or handed off to a permanent team.

Collectively, we help GitLab improve the reliability, productivity, and responsiveness of the platform that powers how our customers and GitLab team members build software.

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

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