Deep GitLab expertise. Real DevSecOps capability.
OTTRA was built on a simple premise — that getting the most from GitLab requires two things working together: an in-depth understanding of what the platform can do, and the domain expertise to apply it to the real bottlenecks in software delivery.
No commitment. Just a conversation. We reply within one working day.
Meet the team
Most consultancies offer GitLab as part of a broader DevOps practice. OTTRA doesn’t. We only work with GitLab — which means whoever you speak to has almost certainly seen your exact situation before, and already knows what good looks like.
Several of our consultants worked inside GitLab. Between them, the team holds over 50 professional certifications — including GitLab Professional Services Engineer and GitLab Certified Trainer — and every consultant brings more than ten years of hands-on GitLab experience. Twenty of those years were spent building and supporting the product from the inside.
Steve Challis
Co-Founder
Languages: English
Steve spent five years at GitLab itself, working as an Enterprise Account Executive and watching first-hand how organisations struggled to get real value from the platform they’d invested in. The licences were there. The potential was there. The gap between the two was the opportunity. He founded OTTRA to close it.
Expertise: Enterprise GitLab strategy, account management, business development
Matthew Drury
Co-Founder
Languages: English
Matt built his career in Customer Success across the DevOps world, developing a sharp eye for where teams get stuck and why. When he saw how consistently organisations were falling short with GitLab specifically — not for lack of ambition, but lack of the right support — he knew exactly where to focus. OTTRA is that focus.
Expertise: Customer success, DevOps strategy, partner development
David Tacheny
Principal Technical Architect
Languages: English
David spent years at GitLab Inc. as Senior Manager of Professional Services, building and leading a 15-person global team and driving enterprise transformations at scale — including GitLab deployments for 30,000-user organisations in government security. He holds an extensive portfolio of GitLab trainer certifications across CI/CD, security, and system administration. At OTTRA, David leads on enterprise architecture and large-scale GitLab deployments.
Expertise: Enterprise architecture, large-scale GitLab deployments, professional services
Hugo Mendiguchia
GitLab Engineer & Trainer
Languages: English, Spanish
Hugo brings deep hands-on GitLab engineering experience to every engagement — whether that’s untangling a complex migration, optimising a CI/CD pipeline, or helping a team genuinely understand the platform they’re working on. As a trainer, he has a particular talent for making GitLab click for engineers who’ve been thrown in at the deep end. He delivers in both English and Spanish, making him the go-to for OTTRA’s work across Spanish-speaking organisations.
Expertise: GitLab migrations, CI/CD pipelines, training and enablement
Nick Lotz
DevSecOps Consultant
Languages: English, French
Nick came to OTTRA from GitLab’s professional services organisation, where he combined startup innovation experience with enterprise delivery. He specialises in DevSecOps consulting, infrastructure automation, and AI-driven developer productivity — and is a certified GitLab trainer across multiple disciplines. Nick’s view: user education and genuine understanding account for 80% of the value organisations get from their software investment.
Expertise: Infrastructure automation, DevSecOps, machine learning and AI, training and enablement
Neil Douek
Solution Architect
Languages: English
Neil brings extensive enterprise experience from Fujitsu, London Stock Exchange Group, Deutsche Börse, ICAP, and Publicis. As a certified GitLab Solution Architect, he combines deep technical knowledge with strategic thinking to guide organisations through DevOps transformation. Neil specialises in solution architecture and thought leadership around the evolution of software engineering practices.
Expertise: Solution architecture, financial services, DevOps strategy
Sander Brienen
GitLab Consultant
Languages: Dutch, English, German
Sander brings over a decade of experience building and scaling technical consultancy teams. As a former Customer Success Manager for GitLab in the DACH region, he managed some of GitLab’s largest enterprise accounts — and before that built an Atlassian consultancy practice from scratch to a 14-person team. At OTTRA, Sander specialises in converting complex customer challenges into automated solutions that deliver measurable business value.
Expertise: Enterprise GitLab implementations, automation architecture, customer solution design
What we stand for
Open
We share everything by default. No black boxes, no agendas.
Trust
We trust our team to do their best work, and our clients to know their business. We bring the GitLab expertise.
Teamwork
We work with your teams, not around them. The best outcomes happen when we’re genuinely collaborating.
Results
We measure ourselves by what changes, not what we deliver. Outcomes over outputs.
Amicable
We take the work seriously. We don’t take ourselves too seriously.
Recognised expertise
OTTRA holds the highest level of partner status available from GitLab, alongside ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials certification — and is an approved supplier on the G-Cloud 14 framework.
GitLab Select Channel Partner
GitLab Professional Services Select Partner
ISO 27001 Certified
Cyber Essentials Certified
Ready to talk?
Whether you know exactly what you need or you’re not sure where to start, we’re straightforward to deal with. Get in touch and we’ll take it from there.
Talk to us →No commitment. Just a conversation. We reply within one working day.