Engineering Manager, SSCS: AI Governance

An overview of this role

As the Engineering Manager, AI Governance, you'll lead the team building a paid SKU that helps regulated enterprise customers govern GitLab Duo agent activity across the software development lifecycle. This role sits at the center of GitLab's AI and security strategy: you'll build and support the engineering team, create predictable delivery across a multi-phase roadmap, and help bring visibility, control, and audit evidence into GitLab for customers with strict compliance needs. You'll report to the SSCS Senior Engineering Manager and work closely with Product and Design partners to turn a fast-moving market need into a reliable product.

In your first year, you'll shape how the team operates, grow the organization, and drive delivery across core areas including the audit event system, policy enforcement capabilities, and governance reporting experiences. This is a strong fit if you're energized by building teams and products at the same time, especially in areas where AI, compliance, and software supply chain security come together.

What you’ll do

• Lead the AI Governance engineering team and support its growth as the product and roadmap expand, building a high-performing organization that delivers roadmap commitments on schedule.
• Own delivery planning and execution across the AI Governance roadmap, including audit events, registry and policy controls, and governance reporting, to ship key milestones on schedule and keep roadmap delivery predictable.
• Build the team by partnering with Talent Acquisition, running hiring processes, and helping attract backend engineering talent across levels to meet hiring goals tied to roadmap needs.
• Partner with Product, Design, and peer engineering leaders to prioritize work, plan capacity, and maintain clear alignment on scope and sequencing to reduce delivery delays and tradeoffs.
• Collaborate with the Duo Agent Platform team and other adjacent teams to deliver systems that work reliably across product boundaries and reduce integration issues in production.
• Develop engineers through regular 1:1s, performance feedback, and career development conversations in an all-remote environment to support team growth and improve retention.
• Drive engineering quality through strong testing practices, sound architecture, and a delivery cadence that builds customer trust and reduces production defects.
• Represent the team in stage planning and section-level leadership reviews, providing clear updates on progress, risks, and tradeoffs to support timely decisions and keep roadmap execution on track.

What you’ll bring

• Experience leading backend product engineering teams in areas such as security, compliance, observability, or AI-related systems.
• Technical knowledge of audit systems, event streaming, policy enforcement, or compliance tooling, with the ability to guide architectural decisions.
• Track record of hiring, developing, and supporting engineers across different levels and helping teams grow sustainably.
• Comfort working in an asynchronous, documentation-focused organization with collaborators across multiple time zones.
• Ability to manage cross-functional work involving Product, Design, Legal, and adjacent engineering teams.
• Familiarity with compliance, audit, or governance products, especially in environments serving regulated organizations.
• Understanding of AI agent infrastructure, large language model orchestration, or Model Context Protocol tooling, with the ability to apply that knowledge to technical direction and team planning.
• Ability to recognize transferable experience and evaluate candidates based on relevant skills across enterprise software, distributed systems, or regulated product environments.

About the team

The AI Governance team is part of GitLab's Software Supply Chain Security stage and focuses on making Duo agent activity inside GitLab auditable, policy-governed, and reportable for enterprise compliance use cases. We work closely with a peer Engineering Manager, a Product Manager, and a Designer, and collaborate asynchronously with partner teams across regions to deliver governance capabilities that fit naturally into GitLab's platform. Our work is centered on helping regulated customers adopt AI with confidence while GitLab expands its AI-powered offerings. For more on how related teams work, see Team Handbook Page.