Corporate Development Director

GitLab

5d•$168,000 - $285,600•Remote

About The Position

The Corporate Development Director helps shape GitLab’s investment decisions by assessing what the company should build, buy, partner on, or avoid. The role combines strategy and mergers and acquisitions, owning the broader market perspective across and around GitLab’s AI-powered DevSecOps platform and working with the team’s Analyst on research. It reports to the VP, Corporate Development & Strategic Partnerships. The Director develops market and competitive perspectives, builds investment theses, and makes evidence-based recommendations to Product, Engineering, executives, and the Board. The role compares build, buy, and partner options and contributes an outside-in view to company planning. When acquisition is the right path, the Director leads the process from initial outreach through diligence, closing, and integration, and evaluates outcomes against the business case. The Corporate Development & Strategic Partnerships team leads GitLab’s inorganic strategy, including acquisitions, strategic partnerships with hyperscalers and AI labs, and research to determine which opportunities to pursue or pass on. The team works across Product, Engineering, Finance, Legal, and the executive group in a fully remote, asynchronous environment. GitLab expects team members to incorporate AI into their daily workflows. The role is remote, subject to location-based eligibility requirements.

Requirements

At least 8 years of experience across corporate development, corporate strategy, strategy consulting, or technology investing.
At least 5 years leading end-to-end acquisitions in enterprise software.
Ability to form and test strategic points of view with incomplete information, use data, and revise conclusions when evidence warrants it.
Experience with market sizing, competitive analysis, and landscape mapping, and translating research into recommendations.
Experience with valuation, financial modeling, deal structuring, negotiation, and integration planning, including varied consideration structures.
Working understanding of software development, DevSecOps, and the AI landscape sufficient to discuss roadmaps and architecture with Product and Engineering leaders.
Ability to write concise, decision-ready updates and clearly present trade-offs to executives and the Board in an async-first environment.
Ability to build trust across Product, Engineering, Finance, and Legal and move decisions forward without formal authority.
Ability to own the strategic perspective and recommendations while collaborating closely with the team’s Analyst on research and analysis.
Values the all-remote lifestyle and shares GitLab’s values.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with the DevSecOps, security, AI, and open source ecosystems.

Responsibilities

Research the broader markets in which GitLab competes, including competitive dynamics, AI-native entrants, technology shifts, and changes in where value is moving; work with the team’s Analyst and develop a point of view on where GitLab should play.
Build investment theses with Product and Engineering leaders, defining relevant problems, required capabilities, and the time and cost of developing capabilities internally.
Maintain market maps and competitor perspectives, including competitors’ strategies, product direction, positioning, pricing, M&A, and funding activity.
Produce competitor analyses identifying GitLab’s strengths and exposures, anticipate competitors’ moves, and communicate market shifts and their implications to Product and executive leaders.
Identify markets and adjacencies GitLab should avoid, and make evidence-based cases against pursuing them.
Compare build, buy, and partner options for strategic gaps based on speed, cost, risk, control, and strategic fit, and make recommendations.
Prepare concise strategy memos, decks, and business cases for executives and the Board that clarify decisions, trade-offs, and what each option gives up.
Contribute market and inorganic-opportunity perspectives to annual and long-range company planning.
Frame partnership opportunities and hand them to the partnership owner with a clear thesis, or explain why partnership is not the right option.
Validate acquisition target fit against GitLab’s target profile, product roadmap, and other criteria; develop acquisition rationales and business cases; and manage M&A from initial contact through closing and integration.
Develop valuations and financial analyses, assess commercial integrity and business impact, and assist the VP and executive team with negotiations.
Lead pre-LOI validation and cross-functional diligence across Product, Engineering, Security, Finance, Legal, and People, and communicate findings clearly.
Prepare NDAs, letters of intent, and purchase agreements in coordination with GitLab Legal and outside counsel.
Serve as the directly responsible individual for post-acquisition integration and track outcomes against the roadmap and business goals in the business case; apply lessons learned to strategy work.
Maintain relationships with founders, executives, investors, bankers, and advisors to develop early insight and acquisition pipeline.