Principal Cybersecurity Incident Manager (USA)

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.

*Fortune 500® is a registered trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, used under license. Claim based on GitLab data. Fortune 100 refers to the top 20% ranked companies in the 2025 Fortune 500 list, published in June 2025. Fortune and Fortune Media IP Limited are not affiliated with, and do not endorse products or services of GitLab.

An overview of the role 

The Cybersecurity Incident Manager (Incident Commander) leads and coordinates critical security incident response across GitLab.com, GitLab Dedicated, and GitLab’s corporate environments. This role serves as the primary authority during high-impact security events, orchestrating cross-functional teams, managing incident lifecycles from detection through resolution, and driving continuous improvement in GitLab's incident response capabilities.  As the founding Incident Commander in the team, you will also build upon and mature the incident command function. While this role does not carry a formal on-call rotation, the nature of security incident response may occasionally require availability outside of core business hours for high-severity events.

Find out more about the Security Operations Department here: Security Incident Response Team

What you’ll do

• Incident Command & Crisis Leadership: Serve as the primary Incident Commander for critical and complex security events across GitLab.com and corporate infrastructure, providing decisive leadership during high-stress situations
• Cross-Functional Coordination: Orchestrate response efforts across Security Operations, Infrastructure, Legal, Engineering, Product, and executive stakeholders, maintaining clear communication streams and unified action plans
• Technical Collaboration Leadership: Lead technical calls and/or establish effective async collaboration during incidents, managing participant contributions, keeping discussions focused, and ensuring efficient progress toward resolution
• Blameless Post-Incident Reviews: Conduct comprehensive post-incident reviews and retrospectives, driving the creation of action items, process improvements, and systemic enhancements
• Playbook Development: Design, maintain, and continuously improve incident response playbooks, runbooks, and standard operating procedures for various incident scenarios in conjunction with SIRT engineers
• Process Engineering: Build and refine incident command frameworks, communication protocols, and escalation procedures that scale across a global, all-remote organization
• Training & Mentorship: Develop and deliver incident command training programs, mentor incident commanders at various levels, and build organizational muscle memory for effective incident response
• Stakeholder Communication: Translate technical incident details into clear, actionable communications for executive leadership, customers, and internal stakeholders
• Automation & Tooling: Identify opportunities for automation in incident response workflows and collaborate with engineering teams to build tools that enhance incident management capabilities
• Threat Landscape Awareness: Maintain deep understanding of current threat actors, attack vectors, and security trends to inform incident response preparedness

What you’ll bring

• 10+ years of experience in information security, with at least 5 years focused on incident response, security operations, or related disciplines
• Demonstrated experience serving as Incident Commander for critical security events in complex, distributed environments
• Command Presence: Proven ability to lead and coordinate teams during high-stress, high-impact incidents with clarity, authority, and calm decisiveness
• Strong knowledge of attacker tactics, techniques, and procedures (eg MITRE ATT&CK framework)
• Technical proficiency with cloud infrastructure (GCP, AWS), container orchestration (Kubernetes), and modern application architectures
• Experience with security information and event management (SIEM) platforms, log analysis, and security monitoring tools
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and executive leadership
• Demonstrated ability to build relationships and coordinate effectively across security, engineering, legal, and business teams
• Ability to identify systemic issues from incident patterns and drive organizational improvements
• Share our values, and work in accordance with those values
• Nice to haves: Experience working with / in Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), DevOps, or Infrastructure Engineering; Experience with GitLab the product and familiarity with DevSecOps practices; Experience working in an all-remote or distributed team environment

Due to government requirements, you must be a United States Citizen (defined as any individual who is a citizen of the United States by law, birth, or naturalization) to fill this position. 

About the Team

The Security Operations department protects GitLab, the GitLab SaaS services, and GitLab customers on SaaS offerings. The Principal Security Incident Commander works as part of the Security Incident Response Team (SIRT), a follow-the-sun team across three geographical regions. The Signals Engineering team, Threat Intelligence, Trust and Safety, Security Logging and Red Team teams make up the rest of the Security Operations department. 

The base salary range for this role’s listed level is currently for residents of the United States only. This range is intended to reflect the role's base salary rate in locations throughout the US. Grade level and salary ranges are determined through interviews and a review of education, experience, knowledge, skills, abilities of the applicant, equity with other team members, alignment with market data, and geographic location. The base salary range does not include any bonuses, equity, or benefits. See more information on our benefits and equity. Sales roles are also eligible for incentive pay targeted at up to 100% of the offered base salary.

United States Salary Range

$168,000—$270,000 USD

How GitLab Supports Full-Time Employees

• 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 
• Home office support

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.

Country Hiring Guidelines: 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.  

Privacy Policy: Please review our Recruitment Privacy Policy. Your privacy is important to us.

GitLab is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. GitLab’s policies and practices relating to recruitment, employment, career development and advancement, promotion, and retirement are based solely on merit, regardless of race, color, religion, ancestry, sex (including pregnancy, lactation, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression), national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, mental or physical disability, genetic information (including family medical history), discharge status from the military, protected veteran status (which includes disabled veterans, recently separated veterans, active duty wartime or campaign badge veterans, and Armed Forces service medal veterans), or any other basis protected by law. GitLab will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics. See also GitLab’s EEO Policy and EEO is the Law. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know during the recruiting process.