FP&A Manager, R&D

An Overview of This Role

As a Financial Planning and Analysis Manager, R&D, you’ll serve as a senior contributor on GitLab’s FP&A team. Reporting to the Director of FP&A, you’ll provide timely support grounded in facts and data for critical choices. You’ll manage headcount and vendor spend, coordinate forecasting and annual planning, build financial models, explain performance, and improve the processes and tools that help make GitLab predictable.

What You’ll Do  

• Partner with Product and Engineering leadership to provide financial advice and guide direct, sometimes challenging, cross-functional conversations.
• Manage headcount planning, tracking, and reporting across supported organizations.
• Manage vendor and program spend through forecasting, analysis, and decision support.
• Coordinate monthly forecast cycles and annual planning for Product and Engineering, improving financial processes and policies with minimal guidance.
• Translate financial and data analysis into clear, evidence-based narratives, actionable insights, and recommendations that inform CFO and functional leadership decisions.
• Drive complex projects that improve data-driven decision-making and operating efficiency.
• Prioritize with limited direction and coordinate large, complex projects that improve GitLab’s ability to make evidence-based choices or operate more efficiently.
• Collaborate with cloud hosting finance, mentor finance team members, and use AI, spreadsheets, and data tools to deliver accurate, timely analysis.

What You’ll Bring 

• Experience as a finance business partner supporting a business function, including headcount management, vendor spend, forecasting, variance analysis, and annual planning; candidates may have gained this experience through a range of backgrounds.
• Demonstrated ability to translate complex financial information into clear narratives and influence executives, vice presidents, and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Advanced financial modeling skills, including the ability to quickly build complex models from scratch using Excel or Google Sheets for new and ambiguous business questions.
• Navigate complex or challenging stakeholder conversations by evaluating financial trade-offs and communicating clear recommendations.
• Ability to prioritize with limited direction and guide complex projects while managing changing priorities.
• A collaborative approach to exchanging knowledge and working across finance teams.
• Experience with Adaptive Planning or NetSuite, exposure to cloud hosting or infrastructure spend, and ability to learn and use GitLab are helpful but not required.

About the team

The FP&A team partners with executive team members across GitLab to provide timely, fact-based, evidence-based planning support. We support annual planning, own the operating plan and long-term financial model, support internal financial reporting, and develop financial and analytical tools that help make GitLab predictable. In this role, you’ll be the primary finance partner for Research and Development, work closely with Product and Engineering leadership, and collaborate with FP&A team members who support cloud hosting and General and Administrative functions. We operate in GitLab’s all-remote, asynchronous environment and value clear communication, ownership, mentorship, and the ability to make complex information useful. The Director of FP&A is hands-on and available to help while giving each team member opportunities to present to leadership and own their work.