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An overview of this role
As the Corporate Development Director, you’ll help influence how GitLab invests to win: what we build, what we buy, where we partner, and what we should not pursue. This role sits within the Corporate Development & Strategic Partnerships team, reporting to the VP, Corporate Development & Strategic Partnerships.
This role straddles strategy and M&A engagements. You’ll lead research that frames GitLab’s options: mapping the markets in and around our AI-powered DevSecOps platform, testing where we have a right to win, and turning that into clear recommendations for the executive team. When the answer is to acquire, you’ll drive the deal process end to end, from outreach through close and integration.
Success here is not measured by deal count. It looks like sharper strategic choices: a well-reasoned point of view on our priority markets, investment theses that product and executive leaders rely on, acquisitions that speed up the roadmap when buying is the right answer, and an educated no when it isn’t. You’ll own the wider market perspective rather than individual product categories, and work with the team’s Analyst on the research behind it.
What you’ll do
Strategy and research
- Own the wider market view. Research the broader market GitLab competes in, beyond specific product categories: competitive dynamics, AI-native entrants, technology shifts and where value is moving. Collaborate with the team’s Analyst on the research and turn the findings into a clear point of view on where GitLab should play.
- Build an investment thesis for each focus area. Work with Product and Engineering leaders to define the problems worth solving, the capabilities GitLab needs, and what it would cost in time and money to get there on our own.
- Own the competitive and landscape view. Maintain market maps and a current read on GitLab’s competitors: their strategy, product direction, positioning, pricing, and M&A and funding activity. Produce competitor analyses that show where we lead, where we’re exposed and how rivals are likely to move. Flag shifts by competitors, hyperscalers and AI labs that change our options, and bring the implications to Product and the executive team.
- Define where GitLab should not play. Identify adjacencies that dilute focus and markets where the economics or competition work against us. Make the case for a no with the same rigor as a yes.
Build, buy or partner
- Run the build, buy, partner analysis. For each strategic gap, compare the options side by side on speed, cost, risk, control and strategic fit, and bring a clear recommendation.
- Deliver strategic clarity to executives and the Board. Produce short strategy memos/decks and business cases that set out the decision, the trade-offs and what we give up with each path.
- Feed company strategy and planning. Bring an outside-in view of the market and the inorganic options available into annual and long-range planning.
- Work hand in hand with Strategic Partnerships. When partnering is the right answer, frame the opportunity and hand it to the partnership owner with a clear thesis. When it isn’t, explain why.
Deal execution and integration
- Own end-to-end deal process management. Validate target fit against GitLab’s our target profile, product roadmap and other criteria, and build the acquisition rationale and business case. Drive our M&A process from intro call through the various steps through to closing and integration.
- Evaluate the deal. Develop valuation, commercial integrity assessment, impact on GitLab’s business and provide negotiations assistance to the VP and the executive team.
- Lead cross-functional diligence. Run pre-LOI validation and diligence across Product, Engineering, Security, Finance, Legal and People, and communicate findings clearly.
- Drive deal documents with Legal. Prepare NDAs, LOIs and purchase agreements with GitLab Legal and outside counsel.
- Own integration outcomes. Lead post-acquisition integration as the DRI, measured against the roadmap and business goals in the business case. Bring lessons learned back into the strategy work.
- Build the external network. Maintain relationships with founders, executives, investors, bankers and advisors that bring us early insight and pipeline.
What you’ll bring
- Strategy and deal experience. 8+ years across corporate development, corporate strategy, strategy consulting or technology investing, including 5+ years leading acquisitions end to end in enterprise software.
- Structured strategic thinking. You form a point of view from incomplete information, test it against data, and change your mind when the evidence says so. You’re as comfortable recommending that we stay out of a market as that we enter it.
- Market research depth. Skilled in market sizing, competitive analysis and landscape mapping, and in turning research into a recommendation, not a report.
- Deal craft. Skilled in valuation, financial modeling, deal structuring, negotiation and integration planning, with experience across varied consideration structures.
- Technical fluency. A working understanding of software development, DevSecOps and the AI landscape, enough to hold substantive conversations with product and engineering leaders about roadmaps and architecture.
- Clear executive communication. You write short, decision-ready updates and present trade-offs plainly to executives and the Board, in an async-first environment.
- Influence without authority. You build trust across Product, Engineering, Finance and Legal and move decisions forward across functions.
- Ownership with collaboration. You own the strategic view and the recommendation, and partner closely with the team’s Analyst on research and analysis.
- Preferred: familiarity with the DevSecOps, security, AI and open source ecosystems.
- You value the all remote lifestyle and share our values.
About the team
The Corporate Development & Strategic Partnerships team helps GitLab decide how to grow beyond what we build on our own. We own inorganic strategy: acquisitions, strategic partnerships with hyperscalers and AI labs, and the research that tells us which to pursue and which to pass on.
We work across Product, Engineering, Finance, Legal and the executive group. We set direction and do the detailed work ourselves, with a high degree of ownership and transparency in a fully remote, asynchronous environment.
How GitLab Supports Full-Time Employees
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.
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