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Our Handbook is open source: here's why

about.gitlab.com

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Re: Our Handbook is open source: here's why

#31

Post by sytse »

satysin wrote: post #28
jobvandervoort wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will sound like blatant propaganda for GitLab, but you'll have to take my word that I'm being sincere here: GitLab is by far the best company I've worked at and the best company you could work for, as far as I can see. The values that you see in the handbook are really what every single one of my colleagues works and lives by. People frequently take time off and the team is always supportive, whether it is for a…

Sounds amazing. You need any London based project managers? ;)

Thanks! We rarely need someone in a specific location. Sometimes we do need support engineers in a specific time zone. We don't have projects managers yet, we try to use GitLab as our project manager :) But have a look at our vacancies on https://about.gitlab.com/jobs

Re: Our Handbook is open source: here's why

#32

Post by jobvandervoort »

satysin wrote: post #28
jobvandervoort wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will sound like blatant propaganda for GitLab, but you'll have to take my word that I'm being sincere here: GitLab is by far the best company I've worked at and the best company you could work for, as far as I can see. The values that you see in the handbook are really what every single one of my colleagues works and lives by. People frequently take time off and the team is always supportive, whether it is for a…

Sounds amazing. You need any London based project managers? ;)

Well, we don't care where you're located!

We're not looking for project managers. But you can see all our current jobs on our job page [0].

[0]: https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/

Re: Our Handbook is open source: here's why

#33

Post by sytse »

groovy2shoes wrote: post #13
sytse wrote: post #5

I'm almost going to bed (it is 10:30pm in San Francisco) but I thought it might be interesting to share some deep links: The marketing team has their OKR embedded in the handbook https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/#okrs If we meet our sales target everyone in the company gets a free dinner https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/#sales-target-dinner There is a pretty sweet Kramdown SSG guideline https://about.gitl…

Coffee break calls are such a great idea! As someone who works remotely, that is something I will be doing as well from here on out :)

Thanks, all the credit is for Eliran who joined us less than 2 months ago and already coined this term and wrote it up in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/merge_requests/...

Re: Our Handbook is open source: here's why

#34

Post by abalone »

90-day exercise window on options.[1] That means you may lose your vested options when you leave before a liquidity event.[2]

However they do allow early exercise. That means if you can afford the strike price when you join, then you won't lose your vested equity when you leave. Taxes are the main reason people can't afford to exercise their vested options when they leave, but if you early exercise then you pay no up-front tax (or very little).

So that's better than average, but not as good as the new hotness of 7-10 year exercise windows like what Quora or Pinterest are doing.[3] Reason being, the strike price can still be expensive for folks so it's better if you can just keep your vested options.

[1] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/stock-options/

[2] https://zachholman.com/posts/fuck-your-90-day-exercise-windo...

[3] https://dangelo.quora.com/10-Year-Exercise-Periods-Make-Sens...

Re: Our Handbook is open source: here's why

#35

Post by sytse »

vinu76jsr wrote: post #30
dagw wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go over some secret 'limit' that no one will tell you about, you'll get put in the back of the line for promotions and raises and the front of line when it's time for cutbacks.

I believe opposite case is usually prevented, people don't usually take time off for no reason, they go on vacation, family emergency etc., an observed side-effect of unlimited time off is usually people don't take time off at all, purely a cultural(company's) thing.

We are afraid of people taking too little time off. We're considering introducing a formal performance review point that will penalize the team member and/or manager if someone took less than two weeks of vacation (full weeks, not counting days) for not taking care of themselves. But we're not sure yet this is needed. For now the executive team tries to set the right tone by taking vacation themselves. I'm going to burning man and Hawaii this year and I don't work weekends.

Re: Our Handbook is open source: here's why

#36

Post by sytse »

drinchev wrote: post #29

From the handbook [1] : > Technical interviews > Try to get a real sample of work (which we already do for developers by working on GitLab issues) Avoid puzzles or weird algorithm testing questions. Probing for data structures is fine as long as it is relevant to the job the person is going to do. > Be mindful of the background of the candidate, someone who knows 10 languages already (and some languages in particular…

Thanks, credit for this goes to our infrastructure lead Pablo if I'm not mistaken. He joined us from Amazon so it might be inspired by their process of which he speaks highly.

Re: Our Handbook is open source: here's why

#37

Post by [deleted] »

drinchev wrote: post #29

From the handbook [1] : > Technical interviews > Try to get a real sample of work (which we already do for developers by working on GitLab issues) Avoid puzzles or weird algorithm testing questions. Probing for data structures is fine as long as it is relevant to the job the person is going to do. > Be mindful of the background of the candidate, someone who knows 10 languages already (and some languages in particular…

[deleted]

Re: Our Handbook is open source: here's why

#38

Post by lloeki »

jobvandervoort wrote: post #18
leetrout wrote: post #8

Just absolutely fantastic values for work-life balance and certainly makes GitLab look _very_ appealing... Some of my favorites: We're a distributed, remote-only company where people work remote without missing out. For this, we use asynchronous communication and are as open as we can be by communicating through public issues, chat channels, and placing an emphasis on ensuring that conclusions of offline conversation…

This will sound like blatant propaganda for GitLab, but you'll have to take my word that I'm being sincere here: GitLab is by far the best company I've worked at and the best company you could work for, as far as I can see. The values that you see in the handbook are really what every single one of my colleagues works and lives by. People frequently take time off and the team is always supportive, whether it is for a…

I've been pondering about applying for way too long, forever waiting to complete this or that FOSS project of mine, but your feedback sounds too much like the people I want to work with: kind and open (which I've experienced when contributing), from which trust comes naturally.

Screw it, I'll be applying soon.

Re: Our Handbook is open source: here's why

#39

Post by phaemon »

danso wrote: post #27
Daviey wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sort of punitive things do you mean?

In other companies, the policy has sometimes led to employees taking less time off, because of a reluctance to appear to be "that guy" who takes off more than everyone else. http://digiday.com/agencies/dark-side-unlimited-vacation-pol... > Asked how many days off she took last year, Dawkins was surprised. Forced to think about it, she realized it wasn’t very much: just 14 days, although “it felt like a lot.” There is…

Isn't 14 days more than the US average. I thought it was 10 days. So she wasn't really taking less than other companies.

> with no minimum number of vacation days in place, employers are not required to compensate employees for accrued vacation days when they quit.

Hmm...how does that work for employees in other countries? In the UK full time workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks holiday per year (so if you work 5 days a week, you get 28 days). And employers are obliged to pay unused days when the employee leaves.

Re: Our Handbook is open source: here's why

#40

Post by sytse »

abalone wrote: post #34

90-day exercise window on options.[1] That means you may lose your vested options when you leave before a liquidity event.[2] However they do allow early exercise. That means if you can afford the strike price when you join, then you won't lose your vested equity when you leave. Taxes are the main reason people can't afford to exercise their vested options when they leave, but if you early exercise then you pay no up…

Thanks for posting this. We discussed this internally and have a blog post in the making. Since most options where issued at a relatively low valuation we have not experienced this problem yet. But we are thinking about how to get ahead of the problem before it occurs.
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