Engineering Manager, Database Reliability, Scalability & Operations

About the Role

Lead a world-class team responsible for the reliability, scalability, and operational excellence of GitLab's core database infrastructure, driving critical strategy for one of the world's largest DevSecOps platforms.

Responsibilities

• Build, lead, and coach the database reliability engineering team, ensuring high availability, security, and scalability for GitLab.com.
• Define and execute the overall database strategy, including data store selection for various use cases and critical cost optimization decisions.
• Serve as the escalation point for Tier-2 on-call processes to guarantee service availability goals are met.
• Drive cross-functional influence to advocate for and implement healthy database practices across the organization.
• Manage agile projects and lead technical initiatives related to horizontal/vertical scaling, capacity management, and performance optimization.

Requirements

• Proven experience leading and growing high-performing engineering teams focused on large-scale database operations.
• Deep technical expertise with PostgreSQL, distributed systems, and managing databases at scale on large consumer platforms.
• Strong track record of transitioning teams from reactive to proactive operational models.
• Demonstrated ability to set clear objectives, establish engineering best practices, and hold teams accountable.
• Excellent cross-functional collaboration skills with the ability to influence technical direction without direct authority.

About the Team Impact

The Database Reliability team owns the entire lifecycle of the PostgreSQL database engine for GitLab.com, focusing on engineering principles to ensure reliability, performance, and security, directly contributing to the scalability and success of the platform for both internal use and self-managed customers.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience incorporating AI tools into daily engineering workflows for productivity gains.
• Background in contributing lessons learned from production database operations back into Product and Development teams.