GitLab is preparing to establish its first office in India as the software development company looks to expand its presence in one of the world’s largest developer markets. CEO Bill Staples confirmed the plan in an interview, identifying Bengaluru as the likely location for the new office.
Headquartered in San Francisco, GitLab has traditionally operated as an entirely remote organisation. The company develops AI-powered tools that help teams build, secure, deploy and manage software through an approach known as DevSecOps, which integrates security throughout the development process.
Backed by Khosla Ventures, Google Ventures and Iconiq Capital, GitLab went public on Nasdaq in 2021. Its planned India office will place it among American technology companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor and CoreWeave, that have established or announced plans for a presence in the country.
“India is one of our most important markets. We are increasing our presence in the country to capture the growing demand,” Staples said.
He added that GitLab intends to expand its Indian workforce “significantly in the coming years”, with plans to increase engineering teams and strengthen sales and marketing operations. However, he did not disclose specific hiring targets. The company is currently recruiting for sales, engineering and administrative positions in Bengaluru, alongside remote roles across India.
The expansion comes amid a broader restructuring. In June, GitLab announced plans to exit 22 countries, reducing its geographic footprint by around 37%, and cut 350 jobs, representing 14% of its workforce.
Staples said the countries exited had limited business operations, few customers and, in many cases, only 1–3 employees. He noted that GitLab had reduced its presence from more than 60 countries to around 40, while describing India as a strategic market because of its large engineering workforce.
Meanwhile, GitLab is increasing its focus on AI-powered software development, particularly AI agents. As AI generates more code, businesses need better tools to review, test and secure it.
“What we’re really focusing on right now is building trust. AI has brought incredible speed to coding and other tasks across the software development lifecycle. But the question every customer I speak to is asking is: Can I trust the work the agents are doing?” Staples said.
The company is extending its platform to support both human-written and AI-generated code. It is also moving beyond traditional seat-based pricing towards consumption-based pricing through GitLab Flex. The model allows customers to commit a specific amount of money and adjust spending across products according to their needs rather than purchasing licences based on projected headcount.
Staples said the company’s roadmap, including the Duo Agent Platform, reflects this shift towards a more flexible pricing structure.
GitLab has around 70 million registered developers globally and more than 10,000 enterprise customers, including over half of the Fortune 100 companies, according to Staples.
To manage the growing volume of AI-generated code, GitLab is developing agentic code reviews that can follow an organisation’s coding and architectural standards. The company is also redesigning key systems, including its Git layer, to support up to 100 times its previous scale requirements.
Its tools can also automate testing, identify vulnerabilities and generate fixes before code reaches production.
Earlier this week, GitLab introduced additional tools for managing AI-driven software development. These include GitLab Artifact Central for managing software packages and container images, a Dependency Firewall to block malicious or vulnerable packages, and expanded Duo Agent Platform capabilities for automating tasks across the software development lifecycle.
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