Data Director for Finance and People

An Overview of this Role

As Director, Data Science, you'll lead GitLab's Product, Sales, and Finance Data Science teams and report to the VP of Data & Insights. You have two mandates:

1. Make Data Science a driver of growth. Connect the team's work to GitLab's biggest priorities: supporting product innovation, making sure what we launch is improved and scaled with data, improving product adoption through our GTM motions, and growing the consumption business. Make sure the work changes decisions at the executive level.
2. Set the bar for great data science. Define what makes a great Data Scientist at GitLab, from business partnership to technical rigor, and develop managers who build teams where everyone shows up to that standard.

You lead through your managers with an overall team size of 12 including data scientists and analysts, ensuring direction with the team across the data organization, and staying close enough to the work to pressure-test the analyses and models that matter most.

What you’ll do

• Build trusted relationships with executives across Product, Finance, and GTM, and act as their thought partner, shaping the questions the business should be asking, not just answering them
• Own investment and prioritization across teams: decide where Data Science spends its time, and make trade-offs visible to senior leaders
• Lead high-impact, cross-functional programs, such as driving new product adoption and growing our consumption business, from strategy through measurable business impact
• Coach and mentor managers and senior ICs to grow as leaders, building succession and a bench of future leaders
• Hold a high talent bar, and make sure every teammate grows into a trusted thought partner in their area
• Set org-wide standards for metric definition, causal inference, and predictive modeling, and the role of AI in each
• Build a high-trust culture of urgency, accountability, and open communication, and act on engagement and feedback across teams
• Partner with Analytics Engineering, Data Engineering, and other data teams across the company to solve data opportunities together, aligned on a shared data and AI roadmap

What you’ll bring

• 12+ years in data science, product analytics, or a related field, including 6+ years leading teams and 3+ years managing managers in B2B SaaS or tech
• Track record of building and scaling a data science or analytics organization that executives treat as a strategic partner
• Strong business acumen across product and go-to-market, with experience connecting data work to revenue and growth outcomes
• Executive presence: communicates complex findings and trade-offs clearly to the C-suite, and coaches managers to do the same
• Deep expertise in statistics, experimentation, and causal inference, with enough technical depth in SQL, Python, and ML to guide and pressure-test the team's work
• Clear point of view on how AI is reshaping data science and analytics, and experience leading teams through that shift
• Able to use GitLab, thrive in an all-remote, asynchronous company, model and coach GitLab's remote working competencies, and work in line with GitLab's values

Nice to Have

• Experience with developer tools, DevSecOps, or product-led growth products
• Experience with usage-based or consumption pricing models
• Experience merging or restructuring data science and analytics teams
• Thought leadership in data science or analytics, internally and externally
• Advanced degree in a quantitative field

About the Team

Data Science at GitLab brings Data Science and Analytics together into one function. Our Data Scientists are business partners first, pairing strong business judgment with analytical rigor and statistical expertise. We help leaders decide where to invest, measure what worked, and understand how customers get value from GitLab.

The opportunity is growing fast. AI is driving growth in GitLab's consumption business, creating new ways for data to drive growth. As routine reporting becomes self-serve, the team focuses on the hard problems: experimentation, causal inference, production models, and recommendations leaders act on.

Deputy Chief Data Officer (Deputy CDO)
Cyprus / Worldwide – Remote (Any Location) · Full-Time · Research Center

Social Discovery Group (SDG) is a group of social discovery companies. SDG solves the problems of loneliness, isolation, and disconnection - transforming virtual intimacy into the new normal. SDG’s products redefine the way people interact and connect with one another.

Our portfolio includes social entertainment platforms designed to connect people online across different cultures and regions of the world.

We bring together a team of like-minded people and IT professionals who specialize in creating and developing globally impactful social discovery products. Our international team of digital nomads works remotely from all over the world.

We’re proud to be a two-time “Great Place to Work” winner (USA & Japan, 2024–2025) and a Top-5 Company for Work-From-Anywhere Jobs (FlexJobs, 2025).

We are looking for a Deputy Chief Data Officer for the Research Center of the Core Business Unit — the #2 role in a data function that directly drives company P&L.

We see the Deputy CDO as a full-fledged successor to the CDO: a leader who can take over the function when needed. Together, the CDO and the Deputy CDO make sure we do the right things and that these things reach measurable results fast and predictably. The Deputy CDO owns execution across the function, leads part of the strategic initiatives personally and works directly with C-level executives. This is not a chief of staff or program manager role: we need a leader who goes deep into the substance of analytics, ML, data engineering, marketing analytics, UX research and experimentation, and turns strategy into business results.

Your main tasks will be:

• Lead part of the Research Center’s strategic initiatives end-to-end — from business case and prioritization to delivery and measurable impact.
• Work directly with C-level executives and business heads: align priorities, commitments and trade-offs, negotiate resources and timelines with clear, numbers-based arguments.
• Own the execution of key cross-functional initiatives across the Research Center: data platform and BigQuery migration, ML projects with complex dependencies, experimentation process, AI for analytics, UX research, data quality / SLA / freshness.
• Unblock stalled projects: when work is stuck between teams or has no clear owner, define scope, owners, next steps and blockers, escalate early and drive it to delivery.
• Manage resources and backlog across teams: prioritize by business value, allocate capacity, manage dependencies between ML, backend, product and analytics, stop or rethink initiatives that don’t deliver.
• Build and run the operating system of the function: monthly reviews, quarterly planning, project reviews, retros, commitment tracking, escalation process and a single status dashboard — working with or without any single person.
• Measure everything in business terms: translate initiatives into numbers, benefits and expected impact; track ROI and results against plan; make sure “we shipped the task” is never mistaken for “the business changed”.
• Strengthen the team leads (Product Analytics, Data Engineering, ML, UX Research): help them set goals, prioritize, give honest feedback and grow as managers.
• Own the operational health of the function: data freshness, platform uptime, ML platform stability, delivery predictability and experimentation throughput.

We expect from you:

• 7+ years in data, analytics or ML in product tech companies, including 4+ years in leadership roles managing strong specialists and team leads.
• Experience as a CDO, Deputy CDO or Head of Data / Analytics in a mid-size or large product organization is highly desirable.
• Readiness and ambition to grow into the CDO role: strategic thinking combined with the willingness to own day-to-day execution.
• A broad understanding of all Research Center domains: product and marketing analytics, A/B testing and experimentation, the ML lifecycle from idea to production, data platforms, data quality and SLA, BI / self-service, unit economics. Hands-on depth in at least one of them.
• Proven track record of execution: concrete examples of delivering complex cross-functional data / ML projects to measurable results.
• Strong operational management skills: project decomposition, planning, resource and backlog management, risk management, clean escalation, running many parallel initiatives.
• Business leader mindset: thinks in numbers, benefits and business impact; understands trade-offs between speed, quality, value and risk; always asks “what changed for the business?”.
• Experience working with and negotiating with C-level executives: confident, precise with numbers, persuasive through facts.
• Influence without formal authority: earns trust through competence and results; able to push hard and handle conflict without becoming toxic.
• Systematic, disciplined and persistent; comfortable with ambiguity and multitasking.
• Fluent Russian and English are a must.

What do we offer:

• REMOTE OPPORTUNITY to work full time;
• The initial pay level or pay range for this role will be shared with candidates during the recruitment process and before the commencement of employment;
• Work according to the official holiday calendar of your country of residence;
• Vacation 28 calendar days per year;
• 7 wellness days per year (time off) that can be used to deal with household issues, to lie down and recover without taking sick leave;
• Compensation of kindergarten or school fees for your child;
• Bonuses up to $5000 for recommending successful applicants for positions in the company;
• 50% payment for professional training, international conferences and meetings;
• Corporate discount for foreign language lessons;
• Health benefits. According to the paychecks, if you are not eligible for corporate medical insurance, the company will compensate you with up to $1,000 gross per year per employee. This can be spent on self-purchase of health insurance or on doctor’s fees for yourself and close relatives (spouse, children);
• Workplace organization. The company provides all employees with an equipped workplace and all the necessary equipment (table, armchair, wifi, etc.) in our offices or co-working locations. In the other locations, the company provides reimbursement of workplace costs up to $1000 gross once every 3 years, according to the paychecks. This money can be spent on the rent of the co-working room, on equipping the working place at home (desk, chair, Internet, etc.) during those 3 years;
• Internal gamified gratitude system: receive bonuses from colleagues and exchange them for merch, team building activities, massage certificates, etc.

Sounds good? Join us now!