Senior Director, Global SME Solutions Architecture

An overview of this role

As the Senior Director, Global Subject Matter Expertise (SME) Solutions Architecture, you will build and lead GitLab's Subject Matter Expert organization: three regional teams in AMER, EMEA and APJ, each covering Security & Compliance, Platform, Core DevSecOps, and AI & Competitive. This team is the depth layer of GitLab's technical selling model. It wins the most complex opportunities, scales product expertise into the Account SA team, and turns field insight into product direction.

This is a leader of leaders role. You will manage three regional SME Managers, not individual contributors, and develop them as leaders in their own right. The SME organization is new, so we are looking for a transformational leader who thrives in ambiguity, builds structure where none exists, and has a track record of standing up high-performing technical teams in fast-growing, evolving businesses.

You will work as a peer to GitLab's regional Solutions Architecture Senior Directors and partner closely with Sales, Customer Success, Product, Engineering, Product Marketing and Sales Operations. Together you will make sure GitLab brings the right depth to the right opportunities, and that what the field learns shapes what GitLab builds next.

What you'll do

• Set the strategy, operating model and global standards for the SME organization, aligned to the VP Global SA and GitLab's go-to-market plan.
• Build the resourcing model from product-level bookings and consumption targets. Size each product group by region based on where the plan needs specialist coverage.
• Act as the field's senior partner to Product Management and Engineering. Run a structured feedback loop that shapes roadmap, launch readiness and early-access programs.
• Hire, mentor and develop regional SME Managers and, through them, the full global team.
• Own the engagement model with the regional SA Senior Directors, Post-Sales SAs and Customer Success: triage rules, coverage thresholds, the closed-won handoff to Post-Sales SAs, and escalation paths.
• Create and improve upon the processes, metrics and KPIs for SME-led technical evaluations, workshops, demos and Proofs of Value.
• Partner with CRO staff, regional sales leaders and AVPs on product-category performance, forecast risk and competitive strategy.
• Partner with Enablement to drive field readiness for new product launches with Product Marketing and Enablement, including Duo Agent Platform, security and platform offerings.
• Build strong relationships with key customers at the technical sponsor and executive level.
• Use AI to change how the team works, including deal research, demo creation, PoV automation and knowledge sharing.
• Drive organizational transformation by finding gaps early, building structure where none exists, and leading change without waiting for top-down direction.

What you'll bring

• 5+ years second-line leadership experience (managing managers) in Solutions Architecture, Sales Engineering or a technical specialist organization.
• Experience building or scaling a specialist, overlay or global SA team in enterprise SaaS, DevSecOps, security or developer tools.
• A record of tying technical-team design to bookings and consumption outcomes, with the data to show it.
• The ability to lead through ambiguity and rapid organizational change, bringing clarity and direction while strategy is still forming.
• Strong relationships with Product and Engineering leaders, and a history of shaping roadmap from field insight.
• Fluency across the software development lifecycle, application security (SAST, DAST, SCA), cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), Kubernetes and AI-assisted development, including LLM evaluation and production deployment patterns.
• Executive presence with technical practitioners, managers and C-level stakeholders.
• Proven ability to partner across Sales, Partners, Product, Engineering, Marketing, Customer Success and Professional Services.
• A self-starting, entrepreneurial approach. You don't wait for a playbook; you write it.

How you'll be measured

• Global product-category commit attainment and consumption growth.
• Time from technical win to first workload in customer’s production environment on SME-engaged opportunities compared with non-engaged opportunities.
• SME coverage and engagement speed on the top 10% of opportunities.
• Account Team capability lift: fewer escalations and more deals handled without an SME over time.
• Product impact: field sentiment on the product feedback process along with field-sourced requirements adopted into the roadmap.
• Team health: hiring against plan, manager development, engagement and retention.

About the team

The Subject Matter Expertise (SME) organization is part of GitLab's Solutions Architecture team, a trusted technical partner for the field. SMEs bring the deepest product expertise to GitLab's most complex opportunities and carry customer feedback into conversations about product direction, enablement and value messaging. The team is distributed and all-remote, and relies on clear communication, strong judgment and shared operating practices across regions.