Engineering Manager, AI Engineering: Chat

An overview of this role

The Engineering Manager on the GitLab Duo Chat team helps shape the core AI capabilities behind GitLab Duo Chat, so customers can work faster and more securely across the GitLab DevSecOps platform. In this role, you will manage a team of engineers building AI-powered product experiences that span the software development lifecycle, while staying close to the technical work that informs strong engineering judgment. You will play a key role in how the team delivers scalable, reliable, and high-quality AI features, from roadmap execution to stronger testing, performance, and developer clarity.

Some examples of our projects:

• Extend capabilities of the Duo Agent Platform agentic chat regarding agentic capabilities, UI and context management
• Integrate new agentic generative AI models and providers into GitLab Duo Chat to expand capabilities and improve answer quality
• Improve debugging, observability, and test coverage for AI-powered chat workflows to maintain reliability at scale

What you’ll do

• Manage a team of experienced frontend, backend, and AI engineers to deliver GitLab Duo Chat roadmap commitments across the DevSecOps lifecycle.
• Partner with product and UX teams to define requirements and deliver AI features that address customer needs and improve answer quality.
• Participate in technical architecture and development work for systems that run AI agents at scale, with a focus on reliability, performance, and maintainability.
• Guide day-to-day execution by setting clear direction, tracking progress against milestones, and removing blockers to keep delivery on schedule.
• Coach engineers through feedback, guidance, and development conversations that foster each engineer's growth and overall team performance.
• Promote a team culture grounded in curiosity, inclusion, accountability, and steady delivery against team goals.
• Improve quality, testing, and performance practices that increase coverage, strengthen observability, and keep AI-powered chat workflows reliable in production.

What you’ll bring

• Experience managing engineering teams in a distributed environment and enabling strong team execution.
• Strong software engineering foundation with the ability to contribute to technical discussions and evaluate engineering tradeoffs.
• Hands-on familiarity with AI/ML technologies and experience integrating AI models into production systems.
• Excellent communication and leadership skills to drive cross-team collaboration and alignment.
• Ability to balance strategic thinking with tactical execution to deliver results iteratively.