What It’s Like to Work on GitLab’s Global CIO Team in India

How GitLab’s Global CIO Team in India Supports Teams Around the World

For IT Enterprise Applications Engineer Harshit, being a member of GitLab’s global Chief Information Officer team in India is “seamless in the best sense.” 

“I work on a global team,” Harshit said. “The work I do, the reviews I participate in and the decisions I contribute to impact global business outcomes.”

Pratik and his teammates use Robotic Process Automation and AI to automate tasks for various areas of the business, from tax compliance, and accounting to HR operations and financial reporting.

“What makes this especially rewarding is that we’re not just building tools; we’re giving people back time they can spend on more meaningful work,” Pratik, a leader in Robotic Process Automation on the CIO org’s enterprise applications team, said. 

From sales representatives in Austin to financial analysts in Germany, team members all over the world benefit from the work being done by Harshit and his peers. Read on to learn about the high-impact projects, close collaboration and supportive culture that defines GitLab’s growing global CIO team.

How High-Impact Work Creates Career Growth on GitLab’s Global CIO Team

The global CIO team’s portfolio of automation solutions saves thousands of hours every quarter across various departments at GitLab. 

This work enables team members to redirect their time toward projects that contribute the most impact and growth for the organization, a QA manager, Monali, said.

Monali has tackled a wide range of projects throughout her time at GitLab, but the one that stands out most to her is the Usage Billing feature project for GitLab’s Duo Agentic Platform. She contributed to this initiative by establishing QA coverage for the Enterprise Applications team and introducing test automation. Monali’s team built reusable automated test scripts that could validate critical flows consistently and repeatedly rather than rely on manual testing.

“For GitLab, Usage Billing isn’t just a feature — it’s the foundation that enables future usage-based products,” Monali said. “Knowing that QA automation played a role in getting that foundation right is something I’m genuinely proud of.”

Harshit described tackling similarly fulfilling challenges shortly after joining the global CIO team.

He expected a longer ramp-up period defined by smaller tasks, but after just a few months, he owned a feature end to end, coordinated with business stakeholders and made decisions that directly delivered impactful business outcomes. 

“A lot of that comes from GitLab’s emphasis on iteration,” Harshit said. “You don’t wait for everything to be perfect — you ship, learn, and improve. That mindset accelerates how fast you grow, both as an engineer and as a contributor to the business.”

How GitLab’s Culture Supports Collaboration on the Global CIO Team

One of the things that stood out to Pratik when he joined GitLab was how serious the company was about documentation. At first, it felt like a lot of extra work. 

“Now, I see it as a genuine superpower: It creates accountability, speeds up onboarding and makes the whole organization more resilient,” Pratik said. 

Monali was also struck by the impact of the company’s culture, saying that it has made her more deliberate and disciplined in her approach to work. 

“When everything is written down — decisions, rationale, outcomes — you can’t rely on verbal shortcuts or institutional memory,” she said. 

“It means the playing field is truly level, and the quality of your work and ideas is what moves you forward, not your time zone,” Pratik said.

 

 

How GitLab Supports Work-Life Balance and Employee Well-Being

The flexibility of working on GitLab’s CIO team is just one way the company shows its dedication to employees’ work-life balance and well-being. 

GitLab provides many benefits that are designed to support employees to show up as their authentic selves, such as access to the Modern Health app, which makes it easier to find mental health care support. The company also offers 100% covered insurance for families, a year-end holiday break, which gives team members paid time off to spend time with their loved ones, and paid volunteer time, which empowers them to give back to their local communities. GitLab also provides India team members with an annual health screening. 

“The company wants you to show up as a whole person, not just an employee,” Pratik said.

To build a sense of community among its globally distributed workforce, GitLab sponsors employee resource groups, volunteering opportunities, and Slack channels dedicated to shared interests like #gaming, #music, #fitlab, and #cricket, along with events like chess tournaments and more, giving team members plenty of ways to connect beyond the work itself. This enables employees to connect over shared values, backgrounds and interests, and learn more about their peers. 

“That sense of belonging within a large company is something I didn’t fully anticipate, and it’s been a wonderful part of the experience,” Pratik said.

Other notable perks of working on GitLab’s global CIO team? Equity in the form of Restricted Stock Units that vest over time as well as an Employee Stock Purchasing Plan.

“GitLab genuinely believes in team member ownership, and it shows in how equity is structured as a core part of the compensation package, not an afterthought,” Harshit said.

From financial wellness to mental health care, GitLab strives to cover every aspect of employees’ lives to ensure they’re fully supported to succeed. But for Harshit, the greatest benefit of all comes down to the company’s remote-first nature, which offers a flexibility that can be hard to find elsewhere.

 

“Being able to structure your day around when you do your best work and having a company that genuinely trusts you to manage your time — that’s a quality-of-life improvement that’s hard to put a number on.”

 

Why Join GitLab’s Global CIO Team in India?

While GitLab’s culture and benefits positively shape the employee experience, they’re far from the only reasons technical talent should consider joining the global CIO team in India.

“You’re building systems that run a publicly traded, global company,” Harshit said. “That kind of experience compounds over time in ways that show up in your career trajectory, not just your paycheck.”

Solving business problems define the daily grind on GitLab’s CIO team in India. For Pratik, having the chance to harness the power of Robotic Process Automation and AI is one of the most fulfilling aspects of his day-to-day work. 

“Being at the intersection of both at a company that’s actively investing in this space means I’m not just maintaining a practice; I’m helping define what Enterprise Automation looks like in the next technology era,” Pratik said.

 

“If you’re looking for a role where you can do technically deep work, own it end-to-end, use AI for transforming your work and have your contributions matter at a global scale — this is the place.”

 

Those on GitLab’s CIO team in India aren’t just making a difference in the near future — they’re unlocking long-term success for the company, all while finding connection in a culture that values diversity, growth and support. 

“If you’re looking for a role where you can do technically deep work, own it end-to-end, use AI for transforming your work and have your contributions matter at a global scale — this is the place,” Harshit said. “You’ll be challenged, you’ll be trusted with real responsibility early on, and you’ll work alongside people who genuinely invest in helping each other grow.” 

 

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