Program Officer

About GitLab Foundation

The GitLab Foundation is committed to helping people grow their lifetime earnings through education, training, access to employment, and systems change across workforce, employer, and policy ecosystems on a global scale. Our North Star is to maximize increases in lifetime earnings for every dollar we invest, with an ambitious target of generating over $100 in lifetime earnings gains for every dollar spent. We focus on supporting individuals earning below a living wage, enabling meaningful, sustained improvements in their lives. Our vision is a world in which one million more people can afford a better life.

In addition to high-impact grantmaking, the GitLab Foundation extends its impact through advisory services that support peer foundations in impact modeling and measurement, and through donor engagement efforts that mobilize additional values-aligned capital. Together, this work allows us to amplify our influence beyond direct grantmaking and contribute to stronger, more effective approaches to economic mobility across the sector.

The GitLab Foundation is an independent private foundation affiliated with GitLab Inc. We currently operate in Kenya, Colombia, and the United States, partnering with organizations that share our commitment to expanding opportunity at scale. You can learn more about the GitLab Foundation by visiting our website and reviewing our public Handbook.

The Team

The GitLab Foundation is a high-performing, fully remote team that moves quickly, values curiosity, and is deeply results-oriented. We bring together diverse experience across philanthropy, nonprofit leadership, and the private sector — leveraging a range of perspectives to act with rigor, empathy, and strategic clarity.

Our culture is grounded in our CREDIT values and shaped by respect, humility, open debate, and a strong bias for action. This is a hands-on environment where priorities evolve, decisions move quickly, and team members are expected to take initiative without waiting for perfect clarity. We hold ourselves to high standards, operate with transparency and ownership, and are comfortable navigating ambiguity as we iterate, learn, and improve. Above all, we are united by a shared commitment to delivering meaningful, measurable impact in the lives of those we support.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal Program Officer brings a strong mix of strategic thinking, relationship-building skills, and hands-on execution, with fluency in economic mobility and the future of work, including how AI and emerging technologies are shaping the U.S. economy.

You are comfortable managing a diverse grant portfolio and working closely with nonprofit organizations, community groups, peer funders, employers, and other stakeholders to design and advance partnerships that maximize impact for individuals navigating a rapidly changing labor market and economy.

You balance big-picture strategy with day-to-day execution, approaching your work with curiosity, flexibility, and a willingness to roll up your sleeves. You are a strong collaborator inside your organization, who partners well with team mates at all levels. You bring strong internal expertise in U.S. workforce and economic opportunity systems, including public workforce infrastructure, employer-led pathways, training and credentialing ecosystems, and policy-adjacent levers that influence economic mobility.

You are adept at guiding organizations through the full grant lifecycle — from early conversations and co-design of programs through monitoring, learning, and close-out — while balancing rigor, transparency, and respect for grantee capacity.

You thrive in collaborative environments, value lived experience as a critical input to strategy, and are motivated by advancing evidence-based, technology-aware, cross-sectoral approaches to increasing lifetime earnings.

This role reports to the Chief Programs and Partnerships Officer.

Key Responsibilities

Grantmaking and Portfolio Strategy

• Design and advance effective grantmaking strategies aligned with the Foundation’s North Star, portfolio goals, and desired long-term impact on lifetime earnings
• Apply a future-of-work lens — on topics such as AI adoption, automation, and digital modernization — to investment strategy, partner selection, and portfolio learning
• Serve as an internal thought leader on U.S. economic opportunity, workforce systems, and labor market dynamics, translating complexity into clear, actionable strategy
• Develop evidence-based, integrated, and collaborative approaches to increasing lifetime earnings across assigned portfolios
• Stay abreast of research, trends, and advancements in economic mobility across the public, nonprofit, and private sectors; distill and translate market research findings to inform and influence stakeholders and strategy
• Contribute lessons learned and insights to the GitLab Foundation Handbook, to inform the broader community on our achievements, failures, and learnings

Investment Execution, Due Diligence & Learning

Relationships, Ecosystem Building & Influence

Desired Knowledge, Skills, Experience, and Personal Attributes

Location : Full-time remote position (must be based in the US). The GitLab Foundation does not offer visa sponsorship.

Travel : Approximately 10-20% of the time