Engineering Manager, Security Platform: Authentication

📋 Job Overview

GitLab is the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps. GitLab enables 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.

The same principles built into our products are reflected in how our team works: we embrace AI as a core productivity multiplier, with all team members expected to incorporate AI into their daily workflows to drive efficiency, innovation, and impact. GitLab is where careers accelerate, innovation flourishes, and every voice is valued. Our high-performance culture is driven by our values and continuous knowledge exchange, enabling our team members to reach their full potential while collaborating with industry leaders to solve complex problems. Co-create the future with us as we build technology that transforms how the world develops software.

🏢 About GitLab

We're part of the Security Platform stage, alongside Authorization, GATE Core, GATE Infra, Secrets Manager, and other security teams. You'll partner closely with our existing Authentication engineers in Europe and the Americas.

🎯 The Role

As an Engineering Manager on GitLab's Authentication team, you'll build and lead a team of engineers in Bangalore who own how users, applications, tokens, and artificial intelligence (AI) agents sign in to GitLab. At GitLab, we see our team as our product. You'll need to be technically credible in authentication protocols such as OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect (OIDC), and Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML). Your main focus will be hiring well, growing your engineers, and helping the team deliver on commitments that other parts of GitLab depend on. You'll guide your team's work on OAuth across Cells, global identities, token consolidation, and moving authentication out of the Ruby on Rails monolith onto GATE, GitLab's new authentication and authorization platform. You'll manage these multi-quarter programs with fixed deadlines and many dependent teams.

✅ Key Responsibilities

• Hire, onboard, and grow a team of senior and intermediate engineers in Bangalore, working with talent acquisition during a high-volume hiring period.
• Own delivery for your team's part of the authentication roadmap: plan in milestones, track risks early, and communicate clearly when a date is at risk and what would change it.
• Work with your Staff Engineer and Product Manager to turn architecture decisions into shippable, feature-flagged increments.
• Protect your team's focus. Manage requests from other teams through one intake path, and make trade-offs visible to leadership.
• Coordinate with the GATE Core, GATE Infra, Authorization, and Tenant Scale (Cells and Organizations) teams across India, Europe, and the Americas.
• Make sure the team runs what it builds, including on-call coverage, incident response for authentication issues, rate limits, and production readiness for new services.
• Build a team culture where security comes first, decisions are written down, and code review is thorough and kind.
• Give clear, regular feedback, run career conversations, and handle performance issues early.
• Take part in on-call or operational support where your team’s ownership model requires it.

📌 Required Qualifications

• Significant experience as an engineering manager of backend or platform teams, including hiring and growing senior engineers.
• A background as an engineer in identity, authentication, or security systems, with enough depth in OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML, and JSON Web Tokens to review designs and ask probing questions.
• Experience delivering complex, multi-team programs against fixed dates, including migrations that must not disrupt existing customers.
• Experience running production services, including on-call coverage, incident response, and reliability work.
• Working knowledge of Ruby on Rails or Go.
• Experience building a new team or growing one quickly while keeping the hiring bar high.
• Clear, concise written English and comfort leading a team in an all-remote, asynchronous company across time zones.

🎁 Benefits

• 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

🛂 Visa & Eligibility

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.