Growing an Open CompanyGitLabJob - @jobvo
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GitLab is where you bring your ideas to productionSingle platform for modern developers. Code review, CI, CD, monitoring in one package.
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>250,000organizationsNASA, IBM, Redhat, CERN, SONY, Uber, EA, Alibaba, Airbnb, etc..
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A short history of GitLab
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Open SourceStarted in 2011 by Dmitriy, who didn't have running water
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"I want to work on GitLab full time"— Dmitriy, still without running water
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2014: Founding of GitLab BV5 engineers, 1 sales
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2015
Y Combinator
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2015
seed + A roundKhosla Ventures; Ashton Kutcher; Michael Dell
~6M
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2016
B RoundAugust capital; Khosla Ventures
~20M@jobvo - jobvandervoort.com
~160 employees
about.gitlab.com/team
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What's special?
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zerooffices
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Everythingopen(except private information)
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Remote-only
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Everyone works from homeor a coworking space
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We can hire the best people.
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Everything open?
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GitLab comes in two flavors
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Community Editiongitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ceMIT Expat license
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Enterprise Editiongitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-eeProprietary
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@jobvo - jobvandervoort.com
@jobvo - jobvandervoort.com
Everything in building GitLab happens on public repositories on GitLab.com..
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..even the development of GitLab Enterprise Editiongitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee
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Our proprietary software is publicly readable.
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You can see what it is, what it does,
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And as a customer, you can even contribute!
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But that's not all that is open..
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All our repositories, issue trackers, CI/CD, internal tools, are all public and open source on GitLab.com.
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All our 'internal' documentation, our methods, HR policies, processes, function definitions are all open source.@jobvo - jobvandervoort.com
about.gitlab.com/handbookgitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com
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This means that we've eliminated the difference between external and internal contributor.
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Everyone can contribute.
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Half-way summary
—Everyone is at home working in their pyjamas—Everything is open—GitLab allows GitLab to build GitLab
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How do we actually get things done?
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People should be able to work whenever, wherever they want and can..
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but still be productive and collaborative
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Rule #1Work asynchronously
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Working asynchronously means writing everything down.
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"Who will document this?""Who will create an issue?"
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Use tech to your advantage, for instance using chatops:/gitlab-ce issue new Awesome new button@jobvo - jobvandervoort.com
Make everyone able to contribute. Not just engineers.Everyone at GitLab can create a merge request and commit changes.@jobvo - jobvandervoort.com
Rule 1.1Keep a single source of truth
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Rule 2Set clear expectations and give independence
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Build iteratively and avoid 'walls of text'Keep product specs simple.about.gitlab.com/handbook/product
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Rule 3Over communicate and make opportunities to bond frequently
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Daily team call—5 minutes going over agenda—25 minutes sharing what you did for fun last week
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Summits
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Travel to meet colleagues
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Rule 4Build something great.
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Almost everything we build in GitLab has been driven by people being excited about it.
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about.gitlab.comGitLab.com is has unlimited free private, public repos, free CI, unlimited free collaborators and is awesome.
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Questions?Job van der Voort@jobvo
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