Engineering Career Framework

Development Department Career Framework

Engineering | Development | Incubation Engineering | Infrastructure | Quality | Support

These are the expected competencies of team members at GitLab by Job Title and job grade.

• Engineer
  • Intermediate
  • Senior
  • Staff
  • Principal
• Engineering Manager
  • Frontend, Backend, Fullstack
  • Senior
• Director of Engineering
• Senior Director of Engineering
• Vice President of Development

Development Sub-departments

• Dev
• Core Platform
• Fulfillment
• Growth
• Ops
• Govern
• Secure

Engineering Function Competencies: Associate

Associates at GitLab are expected to exhibit the following competencies:

• Associate Leadership Competencies
• Associate Technical Competencies
• Associate Values Alignment

Associate Leadership Competencies

Engineering

• Assumes goodwill, seeks support and clarification of requirements.
• Capable of delivering work with clear requirements.
• Constructively raises concerns.
• Communicates in a clear, timely, and effective manner.
• Capable of adapting their messaging to technical audience.
• Develops understanding of the organization structure and processes.

Associate Technical Competencies

Engineering

• Considers quality, security, and performance of assigned tasks.
• Works with manager and counterparts to plan and estimate, and delivers small and moderate solutions.
• Seeks guidance when blocked and iterates to a solution.
• Performs thorough reviews within their domain.

Associate Values Alignment

GitLab

• Adhere to the Collaboration Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Results Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Efficiency Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Iteration Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Transparency Competencies for this job grade.

Engineering Function Competencies: Intermediate

Intermediates at GitLab are expected to exhibit the following competencies:

• Intermediate Leadership Competencies
• Intermediate Technical Competencies
• Intermediate Values Alignment

Intermediate Leadership Competencies

Engineering

• Assumes goodwill, and is able to disagree and commit.
• Capable of delivering work despite periodical distractions.
• Constructively raises concerns.
• Communicates in a clear, timely, and effective manner.
• Capable of adapting their messaging to technical audience.
• Understands organization structure and processes.

Intermediate Technical Competencies

Engineering

• Considers quality, security, and performance of assigned tasks.
• Independently plans, estimates and, delivers small and moderate solutions.
• Seeks guidance when blocked and iterates to a solution.
• Performs thorough reviews within their domain and provides helpful feedback to team members.
• Encourages participation and engages with contributions from those in the community.

Intermediate Values Alignment

GitLab

• Adhere to the Collaboration Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Results Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Efficiency Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Iteration Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Transparency Competencies for this job grade.

Engineering Function Competencies: Intern

Interns at GitLab are expected to exhibit the following competencies:

• Intern Leadership Competencies
• Intern Technical Competencies
• Intern Values Alignment

Intern Leadership Competencies

Engineering

• Assumes goodwill, and is able to disagree and commit.
• Capable of delivering work with clear requirements and guidance.
• Constructively raises concerns.
• Communicates in a clear, timely, and effective manner.
• Able to clearly and effectively convey their thoughts and reasoning.
• Demonstrates interest and proactivity in learning about the organization and processes

Intern Technical Competencies

Engineering

• Exhibits proficient problem-solving skills.
• Skilled at delivering small iterative deliverables supported by Senior Team Members
• Seeks guidance when blocked and iterates to a solution.

Intern Values Alignment

GitLab

• Adhere to the Collaboration Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Results Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Efficiency Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Iteration Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Transparency Competencies for this job grade.

Engineering Function Competencies: Principal

Principals at GitLab are expected to exhibit the following competencies:

• Principal Leadership Competencies
• Principal Technical Competencies
• Principal Values Alignment
• All competencies exhibited by a Principal

Principal Leadership Competencies

Engineering

A principal engineer generally operates at an organizational (sub-department or stage, for example) level scope, serving as their organization’s technical lead and connecting their organization to other parts of GitLab.

• Helps team members of all levels understand their organization’s domain and technology through clear and effective communication.
• Makes responsible decisions and evaluates tradeoffs impacting their organization and various aspects of the business.
• Exhibits a deep understanding of their organization’s features, how customers use them, and how they fit into the larger business.
• Improves processes at the organization level.
• Recognizes good solutions to complex problems impacting multiple domains and clearly explains their merits to relevant stakeholders.
• Unblocks and enables team members and counterparts across multiple teams.
• Participates in processes which address complex technical challenges, such as the Architecture Design Process, as a DRI and as a coach.
• Advises on resourcing requirements and provides feedback on promotions into technical leadership roles.

Principal Technical Competencies

Engineering

• Has a broad skill-set with in-depth expertise in several areas.
• Blends technical, product and design strategy, helping their organization to be more productive.
• Represents their organization as a domain expert when interfacing with other teams and departments.
• Reaches beyond immediate needs, independently considering the longer-term, and is always looking beyond for ways to have a broad impact.
• Addresses cross-team challenges related to customers, quality and security.
• Able to take on cross-team complex requirements and decompose them into a proposal of small deliverables.
• Engages in processes, such as the Architecture Design Process, to contribute to their organization’s most challenging technical initiatives.

Principal Values Alignment

GitLab

• Adhere to the Collaboration Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Results Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Efficiency Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Iteration Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Transparency Competencies for this job grade.

Engineering Function Competencies: Senior

Seniors at GitLab are expected to exhibit the following competencies:

• Senior Leadership Competencies
• Senior Technical Competencies
• Senior Values Alignment
• All competencies exhibited by an Intermediate

Senior Leadership Competencies

Engineering

• Communicates clearly and effectively, both written and verbally, when advising, setting expectations, or suggesting improvements. This applies whether interacting with team members, customers, or the wider community.
• Able to deliver work, even when given unclear requirements, within the context of their team.
• Demonstrates knowledge about how their group and stage fit into the larger business.
• Able to suggest alternative solutions to customer problems based on what they know about other areas of GitLab.
• Looks for opportunities for process improvements within their team and works with others to implement process changes.

Senior Technical Competencies

Engineering

• Contributes to the team’s understanding of quality and how it impacts the team’s domain with respect to their role.
• Able to take on large issues with vague requirements.
• Able to resolve complex challenges.
• Acts as a Coach and Mentor to others.

Senior Values Alignment

GitLab

• Adhere to the Collaboration Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Results Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Efficiency Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Iteration Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Transparency Competencies for this job grade.

Engineering Function Competencies: Staff

Staff at GitLab are expected to exhibit the following competencies:

• Staff Leadership Competencies
• Staff Technical Competencies
• Staff Values Alignment
• All competencies exhibited by a Senior

Staff Leadership Competencies

Engineering

A staff engineer generally operates at a team level scope, serving as the technical leader for one or more of their team’s domains of responsibility.

• Helps others across the organization understand their team’s domain and technology.
• Communicates clearly and effectively with team members and stable counterparts.
• Makes responsible decisions and evaluates tradeoffs impacting their team’s domain.
• Exhibits a deep understanding of their team’s features, how customers use them, and how they fit into the larger business.
• Improves team processes.
• Recognizes good solutions and clearly explains their merits to relevant stakeholders.
• Unblocks and enables team members and counterparts.
• Participates in processes which address complex technical challenges, such as the Architecture Design Process, as a DRI.

Staff Technical Competencies

Engineering

• Has a broad skill-set with in-depth expertise in their team’s technical domain.
• Blends technical, product and design strategy, helping the team to be more productive.
• Represents their team as a domain expert when interfacing with other teams.
• Reaches beyond immediate needs, independently considering the longer-term, and is always looking beyond for ways to have a broad impact.
• Addresses challenges related to customers, quality, and security.
• Able to take on complex requirements and decompose them into a proposal of small deliverables.
• Engages in processes, such as the Architecture Design Process, to contribute to their team’s most challenging technical initiatives.

Staff Values Alignment

GitLab

• Adhere to the Collaboration Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Results Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Efficiency Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Iteration Competencies for this job grade.
• Adhere to the Transparency Competencies for this job grade.

Engineering | Development | Incubation Engineering | Infrastructure | Quality | Support

The Incubation Engineering Department career tracks are visualised on the Engineering career development landing page.

These are the expected competencies of team members at GitLab by Job Title and job grade.

• Incubation Engineer
  • Intermediate
  • Senior
  • Staff
  • Principal
• Director of Incubation Engineering
• Vice President of Incubation Engineering

Quality Department Career Framework

Engineering Framework | Quality Framework

Here is a flowchart representation of the Career development in Quality Department.

Software Engineer in Test

Quality Sub-departments

• Dev
• Ops
• Sec
• Core Platform
• SaaS Platforms
• Growth
• Fulfillment
• Data Science

Career Framework

These are the expected competencies of the Quality Software Engineer in Test team members by career level.

1. Associate
2. Intermediate
3. Senior
4. Staff
5. Principal

Backend Engineer, Engineering Productivity

These are the expected competencies of the Quality Backend Engineer, Engineering Productivity role by career level.

Support Career Framework

Engineering | Development | Incubation Engineering | Infrastructure | Quality | Support

These are the expected competencies of the Support Sub Department team members at GitLab by Job Title.

• Associate
• Intermediate
• Senior
• Staff