Staff Global Partner Programs Manager

An overview of this role

As a Staff Global Partner Programs Manager, you’ll turn GitLab’s ecosystem strategy into repeatable programs that help partners create value across the full customer lifecycle: Acquire, Commit, and Consume. You’ll own a portfolio of global partner program workstreams, such as partner sourcing, services attach, adoption, renewals, managed service providers (MSPs), global systems integrators (GSIs), hyperscaler, and marketplace motions, and make them clear, usable, and measurable for partners and sellers across regions.

This is a strategic individual contributor role. You’ll lead through expertise and influence rather than direct reports. You’ll partner with Ecosystem Sales, Partner Operations, Finance, Legal, Marketing, Product, Customer Success, and Enablement to launch and improve programs, recommend changes to incentives and policy, and connect program activity to pipeline, revenue, and customer outcomes. In your first year, you’ll focus on building a clear roadmap for your portfolio, simplifying partner requirements and rules of engagement, and setting up consistent reporting on program performance. As the team grows, this role may expand to include leading partner program managers.

What you’ll do

Own the roadmap, priorities, and execution for an assigned set of global partner programs across Acquire, Commit, and Consume, within agreed strategy, policy, and budget.
Coordinate requirements, milestones, owners, and risks across Ecosystem Sales, Partner Operations, Finance, Legal, Marketing, Services, Customer Success, Product, Enablement, and regional teams.
Improve the partner journey from onboarding and capability building through activation, co-selling, adoption, and expansion, turning partner and field feedback into prioritized program improvements.
Support the design and rollout of partner incentives, including margin, rebates, market development funds (MDF), deal registration, services attach, and consumption, and build business cases with Finance and Ecosystem leadership.
Maintain program guides, eligibility rules, approval flows, and documentation, partnering with Legal and Finance so programs are compliant, auditable, and easy to understand.
Create playbooks, launch materials, and training with Enablement and regional teams to drive adoption of new programs and commercial changes.
Define success measures for each program, such as partner-sourced pipeline, services attach, adoption, and incentive use, and partner with Revenue Operations to report on them consistently.
Use performance data to recommend investment changes, reduce exceptions and manual work, and escalate decisions that go beyond your scope.

What you’ll bring

Experience in partner programs, channel strategy, alliances, ecosystem operations, or a related go-to-market function.
A track record of taking complex programs from design through launch, adoption, measurement, and iteration.
Understanding of partner economics, including incentives, deal registration, MDF, services programs, co-selling, and rules of engagement.
Ability to lead global, cross-functional work without direct authority, setting clear owners, decisions, and escalation paths.
Analytical judgment and the ability to connect program activity to pipeline, revenue, and customer outcomes.
Strong written communication, including the ability to make complex commercial concepts simple for partners and sellers.
Program management discipline across prioritization, dependencies, risk, and follow-through, with a bias toward practical execution.
Familiarity with SaaS, cloud, DevOps, or AI partner ecosystems; consumption-based pricing; or hyperscaler marketplace and co-sell programs is a plus.
Openness to candidates with transferable experience who can build trust across teams and turn strategy into results.