GitLab is the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps, enabling organizations to increase developer productivity, improve operational efficiency, reduce security and compliance risk, and accelerate digital transformation. More than 50 million registered users and more than 50% of the Fortune 100 trust GitLab to ship better, more secure software faster.
Role Overview
Support Engineering at GitLab believes that healthy teams deliver a healthy customer experience, and that command during a crisis shouldn't fall to whoever happens to be senior and available. GitLab's global Incident & Escalation Management (IM/EM) function coordinates critical incidents, complex multi-team engagements, and executive-level escalations for enterprise customers. As Escalation Lead, you'll own complex, executive, and commercial escalations where customer trust and the relationship are at stake, alongside or independently of a technical issue.
In this functional role, you'll advocate for customers inside GitLab, coordinate teams toward resolution, and lead relationship repair after the event.
What You'll Do
- Own complex, executive, and commercial escalations end-to-end, as defined in GitLab's IM/EM engagement model.
- Advocate for customers internally and coordinate Engineering, Support, Product, Customer Success, and Sales toward resolution, tracking commitments and holding owning teams accountable to agreed dates and deliverables.
- Maintain a written, customer-facing resolution plan from engagement through confirmed resolution, updating it at each communication milestone.
- Coordinate with Incident Managers during concurrent technical incidents to maintain a single, coherent narrative for the customer.
- Own external escalation communications using GitLab's approved templates and cadence, representing GitLab in high-stakes customer conversations.
- Engage Sales, Customer Success, and executive stakeholders as needed, including executive-to-executive communication for Severity 1 and 2 events. Brief GitLab leadership with concise summaries.
- Lead post-escalation reviews and relationship repair plans, contribute corrective actions with named owners and due dates to postmortems, and hand the relationship back to the account's Customer Success Manager at resolution.
- Partner with the Head of IM/EM to develop playbooks, communication templates, and process improvements based on patterns from escalations.
What You'll Bring
- Experience in enterprise technical support, customer success, or incident and escalation management at a B2B SaaS or enterprise software company.
- A track record of owning complex, multi-stakeholder escalations end-to-end, including executive customer engagements and structured resolution or account plans.
- Executive-level written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate technical detail into plain-language updates for customers and GitLab leadership.
- The ability to coordinate Engineering, Support, Product, Customer Success, and Sales under pressure without formal authority over those teams.
- Calm, structured decision-making with incomplete information and a steadying presence in high-stress customer situations.
- Proficiency with support and coordination tools such as Zendesk, Salesforce, Slack, and PagerDuty, or equivalent platforms.
- Availability for on-call coverage supporting executive escalations as part of a globally distributed team.
- Nice to have: ITIL Foundation or equivalent certification; customer-facing experience with GitLab, DevSecOps, CI/CD, or cloud-native products; experience with formal escalation/incident command frameworks; or AI-assisted support tools.
About the Team
The Incident & Escalation Management function sits within Support Engineering in GitLab's Enterprise Technology & AI (ETA) division. Operating a follow-the-sun model anchored in the Americas, EMEA, and APAC, the team provides year-round, 24-hour coverage for enterprise customers. Escalation Managers work globally, partnering with Incident Managers, Communications Leads, and regional Support Engineering leadership.
Benefits & Perks
- Benefits to support health, finances, and well-being
- Flexible Paid Time Off
- Team Member Resource Groups
- Equity Compensation & Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP)
- Growth and Development Fund
- Paid Parental Leave
Timezone overlap
UTC-8–-7
Benefits
Health, Dental, Vision, PTO, Equity, ESPP, Learning, Parental leave, Commission, Wellness
Open to
NA
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