Principal Program Manager

Who you are

• Program management for go-to-market across the high-tech industry, with first-hand experience with complex, multi-stakeholder and cross-functional initiatives
• Experience building and scaling how programs run in large, distributed orgs, with clear results
• Hands-on work with AI agents and automations that real teams used in production
• A track record of turning manual work into AI workflows and helping others adopt them
• Comfort standing up launch and program frameworks without adding busywork
• Strong grasp of how product releases and how they impact go-to-market teams
• Bias to action for priorities: defining risks and clear options for path forward
• Habit of measuring success by pipeline, adoption, or consumption, not activity counts
• Ability to run several high-stakes workstreams at once without dropping quality or trust
• Clear writing and speaking with executives; gets decisions made across competing priorities
• Influence without direct authority, including with senior leaders
• Fluency with project tools with AI automation on top, and the ability to use GitLab
• Ability to travel if needed and comply with the company's travel policy
• 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

What the job involves

• As Principal Program Manager, Go-To-Market, you own two equal pillars of go-to-market execution for Product & Technical Marketing (PTM)
• First, you are the strategic and hands-on architect behind GitLab's high-stakes minor and major launches, redesigning the launch operating model with AI agents at its core so customers discover, adopt, and experience GitLab with precision
• Second, you run program management on key initiatives that span Product Management and Product Design through Growth Marketing, Comms and Social, and Field Enablement, wherever those motions depend on PTM
• PTM team is responsible for product and solutions marketing, technical writing and documentation, developer advocacy, and globalization, and acts as the glue between these functions across a variety of go-to-market initiatives
• You are AI-first by default
• When programs still run on many manual steps, you convert that work into team-wide AI workflows, either by shipping the automations yourself or by partnering with the AI Transformation Owner (ATO) for the marketing organization to drive shared skills, adoption, and governance
• You are not a reactive deadline chaser
• You drive solutions with stakeholders as dates approach, design decision stages so tradeoffs land early, and redesign stages and workflows when product roadmap, growth priorities, or major launch decisions change
• You create clarity in ambiguity: frame the problem, present options and tradeoffs, name owners, and optimize for decision velocity
• In your first year, you institutionalize a dual operating system: a scalable launch framework for 15+ minor and major launches per year, and a portfolio program practice that maps dependencies from Product and Design through PTM into Growth, Comms, and Field
• You ship production agent workflows that cut manual coordination, establish benchmarks for quality, and make go-to-market program management achieve relevance in the AI era, and become a trusted partner across the organization
• Reporting to the VP of Product & Technical Marketing, you operate with significant executive visibility and autonomy
• You measure success by what lands for customers and the business: pipeline where it matters, and brand and community impact where business requires it, not by activity volume alone
• Run a concurrent portfolio of PTM-dependent initiatives with clear owners, dates, and tradeoffs
• Give leadership the context to decide: risks, options, and a recommendation, not status theater
• Align go-to-market functions when work streams collide or compete for the same people
• Codify how programs run so each cycle starts sharper than the last
• Put quality in the path of the work, then confirm market-facing pieces landed as intended
• Turn recurring coordination into shared AI workflows the team can run without you in the loop
• Partner with Marketing's ATO when a workflow needs department-wide adoption or guardrails
• Escalate early with a clear ask when a call sits above the working team
• Protect focus with smaller core teams, fewer standing meetings, more working sessions
• Close the loop on results with the data team, then feed what you learn into the next cycle
• ---Some examples of projects:
• Orchestrate minor launches that put new platform releases in front of the community
• Orchestrate major launches tied to company events that move pipeline
• Orchestrate weekly signal announcements so we stay present in a fast-moving ecosystem
• Sequence product decisions into PTM and other go-to-market functions, with clear handoffs
• Keep field enablement on track when they depend on messaging and sales assets
• Design decision points early so blockers show up before the deadline
• Scope launches for pipeline and for post-launch adoption when agentic products are involved
• Build AI workflows that draft briefs, synthesize status, and cut manual program steps
• Rebuild stages and calendars when roadmap, growth priorities, or launch plans change
• Run retrospectives that improve the system, and remove process as often as you add it

Benefits

• We offer benefits to manage your health, wealth, and well-being regardless of location
• Flexibility in schedule to be there for life’s important moments
• Equity compensation & Employee Stock Purchase Plan offered
• Generous Paid Time Off