GitLab has several customer-facing roles that work together across the pre-sales and post-sales journey. This page provides a side-by-side comparison to clarify how each role differs in focus, engagement model, and technical depth.
GitLab has several customer-facing roles that work together across the pre-sales and post-sales journey. This page provides a side-by-side comparison to clarify how each role differs in focus, engagement model, and technical depth. Roles covered include Customer Success Manager (CSM), Customer Success Engineer (CSE), Customer Success Architect (CSA), Professional Services Engineer (PSE), Renewals Manager (RM), Solutions Architect (SA), and Assigned Support Engineer (ASE).
For an overview of how these roles map to GitLab's paid service tiers, see the [Success Tiers page](/handbook/customer-success/success-services/).
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ For an overview of how these roles map to GitLab's paid service tiers, see the [
| **[PSE](/handbook/customer-success/professional-services-engineering/)** | Project-based implementation and migration | Installations, migrations, custom development, training under SOWs | Project-scoped, sold by PS Engagement Management | Explicitly hands-on — can be "hands on keyboard" |
| **[Renewals Manager (RM)](/handbook/customer-success/renewals-managers/)** | Own the renewal moment; customer retention | Renewal pipeline, contracts, playbooks, risk and expansion | Global Renewals Organization within CS | Commercial and deal-focused |
| **[Solutions Architect (SA)](/handbook/solutions-architects/)** | Pre-sales technical win | Discovery, demos, POCs, pre-sales Success Plans | Aligned to AEs, engaged per opportunity | Advisory and demonstrative |
| **[ASE](/handbook/support/enhanced-support-offerings/offering-assigned-support-engineer/)** | Incident resolution for Signature tier customers | Support tickets, triage, coordination with product and engineering | Designated for Signature tier | Hands-on troubleshooting in support contexts |
| **[Assigned Support Engineer (ASE)](/handbook/support/enhanced-support-offerings/offering-assigned-support-engineer/)** | Proactive platform stability, architecture advisory, and complex support ownership for Signature tier customers | Architecture enhancements, performance optimization, platform engineering advisory, and owning complex support tickets | Designated for Signature tier | Named support contact who advises on overall architecture and platform improvements — not hands-on, but can be very prescriptive with recommendations; becomes increasingly proactive as they learn your architecture and system limitations |
