An overview of this roleAs Director, Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A), you'll lead finance for GitLab's Research & Development (R&D) organization, our largest operating expense area. You'll be the strategic finance partner to our Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and their leadership team, owning R&D planning, forecasting, and investment decisions.
R&D builds our AI-powered development, security, and operations (DevSecOps) platform, which more than 100,000 organizations use. You'll connect investment in headcount, infrastructure, AI and cloud usage, and tooling to product outcomes, with clear measurement and reliable forecasts.
You'll sit at the CTO's staff table, shape GitLab's long-range plan, and help leadership decide where to invest next, making R&D spend predictable.
What you'll do- Serve as the finance advisor to the CTO and R&D leadership. Hold partners accountable for execution against plan and connect R&D priorities to company financial targets.
- Lead annual planning, and rolling forecasts for R&D. Own the operating plan across headcount, compensation, contractors, hosting and cloud, AI and large language model (LLM) costs, software, and tooling.
- Build frameworks that connect R&D investment to product roadmap outcomes. Evaluate business cases for new initiatives, AI capabilities, build-versus-buy decisions, and vendor commitments, and present risks and opportunities to leadership.
- Define and track R&D efficiency metrics, including R&D spend as a percentage of revenue, cost per engineer, hosting cost per user, and AI inference cost per feature. Identify large-scale savings and reallocation opportunities and see them through to completion.
- Partner with People and R&D leaders on hiring plans, location strategy, and organizational design. Keep headcount forecasts accurate and reconciled to actuals.
- Lead the AI transformation of R&D finance. Rethink planning, forecasting, and reporting workflows, and use AI tools to make them faster, more accurate, and more insightful.
- Redesign FP&A processes, policies, and planning and reporting systems for efficiency and effectiveness, with AI in the center. Work with Accounting on capitalized software, accruals, and allocations, and with Procurement on process improvements.
- Lead and develop your R&D finance team:: hire and coach team members, set goals and priorities, and give expert feedback. Put GitLab's values into practice through handbook-first, asynchronous collaboration across time zones.
What you'll bring- Extensive finance experience, including serving as the lead finance partner to an R&D, Engineering, or Product organization plus experience leading a team of analysts
- A strong understanding of financial statements, accounting principles, and R&D cost drivers, including engineering headcount, cloud hosting, AI and LLM usage, software licenses, and capitalized software development.
- Experience leading process redesign and change in a finance team, including hands-on use of AI tools to improve how work gets done.
- Expertise in influencing senior technical stakeholders and translating complex analysis into clear recommendations for executives.
- Advanced financial modeling skills that follow industry best practices, expertise in Google Sheets, and hands-on experience with financial and data visualization tools. We don't use Excel for modeling.
- A bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or a related field.
- Comfort working remotely and asynchronously, and the ability to use GitLab.
- Preferred experience includes enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) finance; direct CTO partnership; NetSuite, Sisense, Adaptive Planning, or SQL; or a Master of Business Administration (MBA), Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), or Certified Public Accountant (CPA) qualification.
The base salary range for this role's listed level is currently for residents of the United States only. This range is intended to reflect the role's base salary rate in locations throughout the US. Grade level and salary ranges are determined through interviews and a review of education, experience, knowledge, skills, abilities of the applicant, equity with other team members, alignment with market data, and geographic location. The base salary range does not include any bonuses, equity, or benefits. See more information on our benefits and equity. Sales roles are also eligible for incentive pay targeted at up to 100% of the offered base salary.
United States Salary Range
$168,000-$285,600 USD
How GitLab Supports Full-Time Employees- Benefits to support your health, finances, and well-being
- Flexible Paid Time Off
- Team Member Resource Groups
- Equity Compensation & Employee Stock Purchase Plan
- Growth and Development Fund
- Parental Leave
Please note that we welcome interest from candidates with varying levels of experience; many successful candidates do not meet every single requirement. Additionally, studies have shown that people from underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to a job unless they meet every single qualification. If you're excited about this role, please apply and allow our recruiters to assess your application.
Country Hiring Guidelines: GitLab hires new team members in countries around the world. All of our roles are remote, however some roles may carry specific location-based eligibility requirements. Our Talent Acquisition team can help answer any questions about location after starting the recruiting process.
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