Senior Director, People Business Partner

An overview of this role

As the Senior Director, People Business Partners, you'll serve as a strategic business partner to multiple C-level executives. You will lead a team of experienced global PBPs who support executive leadership. You'll report to the VP, People Business Partners and translate business priorities into talent strategies that help GitLab scale a high-performing, values-driven technical organization in a fully remote environment. You'll drive organizational transformation and change management, including designing organization structures, building leadership capability, and embedding scalable people practices.  

What you'll do

• Serve as the senior people partner to several of GitLab's C-level executives and their executive teams, building the trust and credibility needed to shape and execute a global people strategy that accelerates teams' growth, performance, and organizational effectiveness.
• Architect and lead large-scale organizational transformation, including organizational design, workforce planning, and change management with the rigor and urgency required to keep pace with rapid shifts in how AI is reshaping the business and the team.
• Experience advising global engineering teams with on-call responsibilities. 
• Drive talent reviews, succession planning, and leadership pipeline development ensuring the organization has the leadership depth and critical skills needed to execute on its long-term roadmap.
• Bring people analytics to leadership, providing clear line of sight into organizational health including capability gaps, leadership effectiveness, and critical talent retention; translate those insights into strategic recommendations that drive performance and decision-making.
• Provide direct, candid coaching and counsel to executives and senior leaders on leadership effectiveness, team dynamics, and navigating complex organizational and people challenges.
• Partner with Total Rewards, Talent Acquisition, Talent Management & Development, and People Operations to ensure talent needs are reflected in company-wide people programs, policies, and investments.
• Lead, develop, and inspire a high-performing team of People Business Partners — setting a clear vision, building a culture of coaching and accountability, and ensuring each team member is positioned to do their best and most impactful work.

What you'll bring

• Proven track record of leading people strategy through significant organizational transformation, including AI-driven workforce shifts, rapid scaling, or major technology pivots within enterprise technology or SaaS environments.
• Demonstrated ability to operate at the intersection of Product/Engineering, Finance, Total Rewards, and Talent Acquisition building alignment across competing priorities and influencing decisions without direct authority in a fast-moving, global organization.
• Experience building and scaling a People Business Partner team, including raising the bar on strategic impact, and developing PBPs to operate as true business partners to senior leaders.
• Executive-level presence and credibility, with the ability to advise C-suite and VP-level leaders with candor and confidence especially in ambiguous, high-stakes situations. 
• Proven ability to lead effectively across time zones, building aligned, engaged, and accountable teams in a fully remote environment.

About the team

The People Business Partner team at GitLab sits at the intersection of people strategy and business execution. We partner directly with senior leaders to shape talent strategy, drive organizational effectiveness, and build the leadership and cultural foundations that allow GitLab to perform at its best.