Director, Technical Support Engineering

Databricks

CSQ227R231 MISSION The Director of Data & AI Support Engineering - Bangalore will be responsible for leading and growing a regional team of Data & AI technical experts in India, focused on providing resiliency and smooth operation of customer production workloads.  This leader will oversee support operations during APJ and EMEA business hours with close alignment with other global teams to ensure 24x7 support coverage through coordination with other regions.  This team resolves complex and long-running data engineering use cases raised by Databricks customers to support the success of live use cases - which includes performance optimization, ensuring resiliency of production jobs, helping customers stabilize workloads on new products and features, and more.  Reporting to the Global Lead of Frontline Support Engineering - Data & AI - you are able to understand the real-world business problems our customers are solving with data and are committed to helping them achieve reliability and performance of their systems to meet their goals. THE IMPACT YOU WILL HAVE: * Serve as the India site leader for an elite team of Data & AI specialists that can provide coverage of customers across EMEA & APJ business hours. * Grow the technical expertise of the team to support successful adoption of new products and features of the Databricks platform for customer production workloads. * Engage with top customers to understand how to support their business needs with their Data & AI strategy, in collaboration with field engineering and sales when required. * Partner with internal product engineering teams to make Databricks products better and more supportable. * Understand how to maintain high reliability of the Databricks platform to successfully achieve customer business goals. COMPETENCIES & REQUIREMENTS * Proven people leadership experience: at least 6+ years as a manager of managers. * 18+ years in the IT industry, with a strong background in Software Engineering with specialization in Data Engineering, ideally with Big Data & Cloud experience. * Experience leading large teams (100+ employees) in engineering, technical support, or consulting.  Support experience is not required - but customer facing experience is highly desirable. * Hands-on experience in at least two of the following at production scale: * Big Data (Spark, Hadoop, Kafka) * Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence projects * Data Science / Streaming use cases * Spark expertise is a big advantage. * Strong background in customer-facing support leadership roles. * Excellent troubleshooting skills across distributed systems. * Strong ownership mindset with ability to thrive in a fast-paced, startup-like environment with evolving needs. * Bachelor’s/Master’s in Computer Science or equivalent technical field. About Databricks Databricks is the data and AI company. More than 10,000 organizations worldwide — including Comcast, Condé Nast, Grammarly, and over 50% of the Fortune 500 — rely on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform to unify and democratize data, analytics and AI. Databricks is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices around the globe and was founded by the original creators of Lakehouse, Apache Spark™, Delta Lake and MLflow. To learn more, follow Databricks on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Benefits At Databricks, we strive to provide comprehensive benefits and perks that meet the needs of all of our employees. For specific details on the benefits offered in your region click here. Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion At Databricks, we are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive culture where everyone can excel. We take great care to ensure that our hiring practices are inclusive and meet equal employment opportunity standards. Individuals looking for employment at Databricks are considered without regard to age, color, disability, ethnicity, family or marital status, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, physical and mental ability, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, veteran status, and other protected characteristics. Compliance If access to export-controlled technology or source code is required for performance of job duties, it is within Employer's discretion whether to apply for a U.S. government license for such positions, and Employer may decline to proceed with an applicant on this basis alone.

Gitlab

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 THIS ROLE As Director, Support Engineering for EMEA, you'll manage an experienced, distributed team serving enterprise customers across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Reporting to the Vice President of Support Engineering, you'll own the region's people strategy, operational delivery, and customer support outcomes while building a healthy team that delivers a strong customer experience. You'll bring deep experience managing multi-country teams, operating across time zones, and shaping enterprise technical support in an AI-first environment. As a member of the global Support Engineering management group, you'll work with peer managers across the Americas and Asia-Pacific to improve service delivery, regional coordination, and GitLab's global support strategy. WHAT YOU’LL DO * Manage the full people agenda for the EMEA Support Engineering team, including performance, career development, succession planning, retention, internal mobility, and team culture across multiple countries. * Manage managers and senior contributors across EMEA time zones, setting clear expectations and supporting consistent performance. * Partner with the EMEA People Business Partner on employment considerations across jurisdictions, including Works Council engagement where applicable. * Own regional service-level target performance, customer satisfaction, ticket quality, resolution outcomes, escalation workflows, and reporting against global key performance indicators. * Improve shift handoffs and Request for Help coordination with Product Engineering and Support Engineering hubs in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Bengaluru. * Oversee EMEA's adoption and ongoing improvement of GitLab's AI toolchain, working with Support Operations and Strategy on tooling, data insights, capacity planning, and staffing management. * Represent the needs of EMEA customers inside GitLab by identifying field patterns, escalating systemic product issues, influencing the product roadmap, and joining customer or partner conversations that require executive support. * Shape global Support Engineering strategy with peer managers, including geographic coverage, quality standards, knowledge exchange, the operating model, annual planning, headcount modeling, and the regional roadmap. WHAT YOU’LL BRING * Progressive experience in technical support engineering or a related customer-facing technical discipline. * Experience managing managers, senior contributors, and distributed teams through a manager-of-managers structure. * Experience managing multi-country teams in EMEA, with knowledge of employment considerations, cultural differences, and communication across time zones. * A track record of owning service delivery, including service-level target outcomes, escalations, and operational performance in a globally distributed environment. * Experience with or interest in AI-assisted support delivery, with the ability to guide adoption and improve workflows. * Clear written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to work with executives and work with others synchronously and asynchronously. * Proficiency with support platforms such as Zendesk, Salesforce, Decagon, or equivalent tools. * Knowledge of DevSecOps, continuous integration and continuous delivery, Kubernetes, cloud-native infrastructure, or GitLab gained through customer-facing work, platform use, administration, or support operations. ABOUT THE TEAM The GitLab Support Engineering team is distributed across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific. The EMEA region represents some of our deepest and most complex enterprise customer relationships. Support Engineers and Managers work on tickets and help GitLab's customers, and they also dig into code and logs to find root causes. Collaboration here is extraordinary. We solve complex problems jointly, participate in pairing sessions and one-to-one meetings, and stay in contact across time zones through deliberate asynchronous habits. 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  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.

Gitlab

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 THIS ROLE As Director, Support Engineering for our Bengaluru Center of Support, you'll build and manage GitLab's India-based regional support hub as a strategic peer to our Americas and Europe, Middle East, and Africa hubs. Reporting to the Vice President of Support Engineering, you'll own the hub's organizational design, headcount growth, management infrastructure, and operating standards while building a healthy team that delivers enterprise-grade technical support across Asia-Pacific and Europe, Middle East, and Africa time zones. This remote-friendly role is based in Bengaluru, India. WHAT YOU’LL DO * Design and build the Bengaluru hub's organizational structure, including specialist and management roles, customer and product segmentation, and shift coverage models. * Establish the management infrastructure, operating rhythms, escalation frameworks, and quality standards needed to support sustainable headcount growth. * Manage hiring and retention in partnership with Talent Acquisition, including role profiles, interview panels, offer selections, career paths, internal mobility, recognition, and team culture. * Develop managers and support engineers, set clear performance expectations, provide transparent feedback, and create pathways into global Support Engineering management roles. * Own performance against service-level targets, customer satisfaction, ticket quality, resolution metrics, and transparent reporting against global key performance indicators. * Implement local escalation workflows, Request for Help integration, and shift handoff protocols across the Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, and Americas support hubs. * Guide the hub's use of GitLab's artificial intelligence toolchain and partner with Support Operations and Strategy on tooling, analytics, and process automation. * Work with regional Support Engineering managers, Product, Engineering, and the Vice President of Support Engineering on global strategy, customer insights, operating plans, headcount models, and the Support Engineering roadmap. WHAT YOU’LL BRING * Experience managing technical support engineering or a closely related customer-facing technical function, including through a manager-of-managers structure. * A record of building or significantly scaling a support organization, including organizational design, hiring infrastructure, onboarding, and team culture. * Experience establishing a global delivery hub or Center of Support and coordinating service delivery across regions and time zones. * Deep knowledge of supporting enterprise software as a service, including managing service-level obligations, tiered support models, escalation frameworks, and operational metrics. * Experience working in a distributed environment that combines asynchronous and synchronous collaboration, with clear written and verbal communication. * Familiarity with AI-assisted support tooling and experience introducing new tools or automation at scale. * Demonstrated ability to retain and develop technical team members in a dynamic hiring market. * Knowledge of DevSecOps platforms, continuous integration and continuous delivery tooling, Kubernetes, or cloud-native infrastructure, along with experience using support platforms such as Zendesk, Salesforce, Decagon, or equivalent tools. Experience with GitLab as a user, administrator, or customer is helpful. ABOUT THE TEAM The GitLab Support Engineering team is distributed across the Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, and Asia-Pacific. Support engineers and managers work on tickets and help GitLab's customers. We also examine code and logs to find root causes. We solve complex problems collectively, participate in pairing sessions and one-on-ones, and stay in communication across time zones through deliberate asynchronous work habits. Support is where customers meet GitLab, and we take that seriously. Fortune 500® is a registered trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, used under license. The Fortune 100 claim is based on GitLab data and refers to the top 20% of companies ranked in the 2025 Fortune 500 list, published in June 2025. Fortune and Fortune Media IP Limited aren't affiliated with and don't endorse GitLab products or services. 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  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.