Sr. Manager, Solutions Architect SME - GitLab

Senior Manager, SME Solutions Architecture

An Overview of this Role

You'll build and lead the regional team of product Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who win GitLab's most complex opportunities. Your team covers four product groups: Security & Compliance, Platform, Core DevSecOps, and AI & Competitive. You'll partner with regional sales leadership to decide where SMEs go, coach your team to technical wins, and make sure every engagement leaves the Account team stronger. This is a player-coach role where you will stay close to the technology and step into critical deals yourself.

What You'll Do

• Hire, develop, and retain a regional team of SMEs across four product groups, establishing a clear growth path for each person.
• Run the regional engagement model with Account SA and Post-Sales leaders, keeping triage fast, coverage focused on top opportunities, and boundaries clear between Account SA and SME ownership.
• Partner with regional sales leaders and AVPs on deal strategy, forecast calls, and product-category plans.
• Review SME coverage weekly against regional pipeline, moving capacity to where product-category commit and consumption are at risk.
• Step into strategic enterprise deals as an executive technical sponsor when needed.
• Coach SMEs on PoV design, executive storytelling, and competitive positioning while maintaining a high bar for technical quality.
• Keep engagement and outcome data accurate in Salesforce to ensure team impact is measurable and visible.
• Work with peer regional managers and the Senior Director on shared assets, enablement programs, and a consistent global playbook.
• Surface regional customer and competitive signals to Product and Engineering.
• Build a high-trust team culture of ownership and continuous learning.

What You'll Bring

• 5+ years of experience leading technical pre-sales, solutions architecture, or consulting teams, including leading technical individual contributors.
• Hands-on depth in at least one of the four product groups (Security & Compliance, Platform, Core DevSecOps, AI & Competitive), with breadth to coach across all four and working fluency with AI-assisted development.
• Demonstrated track record of hiring and developing high-performing technical specialists or Solutions Architects.
• Experience partnering directly with sales leadership on enterprise forecasts, deal strategy, and territory planning.
• Comfort with data and metrics demonstrating improvements in win rates, cycle times, and consumption.
• Strong executive presence with enterprise customers and internal leadership.
• Proven ability to lead teams through change with clear and steady communication.
• Prior experience running an overlay or specialist team, or launching a new team or product category.

How You'll Be Measured

• Regional product-category commit attainment and consumption growth.
• Technical win rate, PoV conversion, and time to production use on SME-engaged opportunities.
• SME coverage of the top 10% of regional opportunities and lead time from request to engagement.
• Account SA satisfaction with SME support.
• Team hiring, ramp time, engagement, and retention.
• EAP participation rates for your geography.

Compensation & Support

• Variable compensation is tied to regional product-category commit and consumption, aligned to geo sales leadership.
• Flexible Paid Time Off and comprehensive parental leave.
• Equity compensation and Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP).
• Growth and development fund.
• Home office equipment and support.