Engineering Career Framework: Principal

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

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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.