An overview of this role

What does software planning look like when people and artificial intelligence agents work together? As a Staff Product Manager for Planning at GitLab, you'll help answer that question and lead the team toward a clear product direction. This isn't just about improving traditional agile planning. You'll rethink how intent becomes actionable work, how that work moves through software development, and where human involvement is needed.

You'll develop a point of view on planning's future and turn it into product decisions with engineering, design, and product leadership. That includes exploring how planning could connect work to business priorities and budgets, rather than assuming the answer is already decided. Alongside that strategic work, you'll share ownership of existing planning capabilities with another product manager.

We're opening this role at Staff level, with flexibility to consider Principal level based on your experience and scope of impact.

What you'll do

• Define a clear direction for planning as software development shifts toward collaboration between people and artificial intelligence agents, and help the team move from open questions to concrete priorities.
• Shape how users capture intent, break it into actionable work, and determine which work can proceed autonomously and which needs human involvement.
• Evaluate whether and how planning should connect software delivery to company priorities, business objectives, and budgets.
• Share ownership of planning capabilities, including work items, boards, specifications, and portfolio planning, with a fellow product manager. Help define how that scope is divided.
• Work with engineering and design to translate product direction into a roadmap and improvements to planning workflows across GitLab.
• Communicate your recommendations clearly to senior leaders, challenge assumptions constructively, and lead the team through changes in direction.

What you'll bring

• Experience leading product strategy and execution for software development, developer tools, or planning products, with the depth to make decisions in a specialized product area.
• A strong understanding of software development and development and operations (DevOps) workflows, including how planning decisions affect downstream delivery.
• The ability to form and defend a product point of view in an uncertain, changing market, while staying open to different ideas.
• Clear communication with technical teams and senior executives, including experience challenging leadership decisions constructively and building support for a direction.
• The ability to connect a forward-looking strategy to practical product decisions and work collaboratively across product, engineering, and design.

About the team

The Planning team builds the capabilities at the start of GitLab's software development workflow, including work items, boards, specifications, and portfolio planning. Decisions here affect how work moves through the rest of the platform, so the team's scope extends beyond standalone project management tools.

You'll work alongside another product manager and partner with engineering and design across this product area. The division of product ownership is still being shaped, and you'll help define it. The hiring manager wants you to bring a different perspective, question established approaches, and challenge senior leaders constructively, with room to influence decisions beyond your immediate product scope.

GitLab's mission is to enable everyone to contribute to and co-create the software that powers our world. Our platform brings software development, security, and operations together.