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GitLab’s Secret to Managing Employees in 160 Locations: Write Everything Down

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: GitLab’s Secret to Managing Employees in 160 Locations: Write Everything Down

#251

Post by minhajuddin »

cookiecaper wrote: post #8
manojlds wrote: post #2

After the mess up, I don't really like seeing these posts about Gitlab. Maybe this is their problem after all.

I think the problem has more to do with their recruiting. To be a successful distributed company, you need a disciplined and highly experienced workforce (note that this does not mean a highly educated workforce, which may actually be a contraindication). GitLab offers a middling base salary for a role and applies modifiers for experience and city-based cost-of-living (both of which may modify the base downward; my C…

There was some previous discussion about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13302906 . I too had to turn down their offer of $2000 USD per month for a Senior position after the second round. This issue keeps coming up in posts about Gitlab and there doesn't seem to be any progress.

I love the Gitlab product and what they have done to Git hosting. But, their salary structure is really screwed up.

Re: GitLab’s Secret to Managing Employees in 160 Locations: Write Everything Down

#252

Post by yunolisten »

Spooky23 wrote: post #7
yunolisten wrote: post #3

> Write Everything Down Then rm -rf the paper.... https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/01/gitlab_data_loss/

Not really germane to the topic. This type of op fuck-up happens everywhere. It's hard to build solid process, particularly in growth phases. Unless there are 2x a year restore tests, I personally assume a 60% backup fail rate.

> This type of op fuck-up happens everywhere. It's hard to build solid process, particularly in growth phases

7 layers of backup processes, that they had written down, all failed and went unchecked, by any of their employees across the 160 locations.

Re: GitLab’s Secret to Managing Employees in 160 Locations: Write Everything Down

#253

Post by nnq »

joe563323 wrote: post #239
rqebmm wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MY company does hybrid remote/on-site, and one of the best ways to mitigate issues with off-site communication is part-time work from home. Since on-site workers spend some of their time as remote workers, everyone has a good idea of what's required to empower remote developers. It's not always roses and rainbows, but it definitely helps.

Hybrid remote/on-site method should only be used as a migration path for the remote-first method from on-site, else it does not work well.

WHY?! What parent poster describes above seems like "heaven" to me. Some people can be "true nomads", others can spend 50% time in office, 50% working from home, everybody can be happy and find "what works for him/her".

I hate both working in-office full-time AND working fully remote. But a mix sounds awesome, I always feel energized when working one day from one place, another day from another, and I also enjoy having the meetings in-person...

Re: GitLab’s Secret to Managing Employees in 160 Locations: Write Everything Down

#254

Post by nnq »

cookiecaper wrote: post #235
ghaff wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is contrarian. As someone who has worked remotely to a significant degree for quite a while, I also find face to face get togethers (whether in an office or elsewhere) incredibly valuable. You're welcome to your own preferences of course but, as someone on a largely remote team, I consider regular get-togethers in various forms pretty much essential.

Just curious, what specific value do you derive from these events that makes them "essential"? While I understand that a lot of people who may not have a lot going on at home may find them enjoyable, I really don't think it can be characterized as essential for accomplishing the job tasks. If face-to-face communication is "pretty much essential", what's the argument for continuing to run the company as a remote/distr…

Some people like me dislike working fully remote just as much as they do full-time in-office... a hybrid approach is only thing that can work for me. "Constant consistent variety" is what keeps me ticking and productive. Also, just as you want to take time off from work, don't you also feel the need to take some time off from family too ? ;)

Re: GitLab’s Secret to Managing Employees in 160 Locations: Write Everything Down

#255

Post by kartickv »

scruple wrote: post #242
kartickv wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why your manager missed the point. If the "vast majority" of employees are onsite, then it seems reasonable to expect the few who aren't to come visit, or otherwise change their working style, rather than the majority to change their working practices for the few. Particularly if it's the same state in the same country and not, say, a 20-hour flight from Bangalore to San Francisco. Am I missing something?

Yes, I believe you must be. I'm referring to where the OP said that as a remote employee I feel out of the loop on a lot of things. So, I tell my manager that I'm missing important information about the projects I'm working on because people have these infrequent, but important, impromptu meetings and those details don't exist outside of those spoken words and their heads and his response is to tell me to come to the…

You ARE asking them to modify their behavior when you say that they should use Slack/email/whatever other tool for your benefit, or that they shouldn't have an impromptu chat around the water cooler because you're not around.

Since you're in the minority, you can't demand the majority change their working style for you. It's up to you to fit in to how the majority works, say by showing up in the office. Or you'll miss out important information, which will be to your detriment, not theirs.

> To do what, exactly?

To communicate with others the way they apparently prefer to communicate — in person.

And to build relationships, which lead to working smoother, and prevent misunderstandings from snowballing. It's easier to get pissed off with someone over email than in person.

There are many advantages to facetime. You can decide to forego those, but you can't tell others to, just because you want to.

Re: GitLab’s Secret to Managing Employees in 160 Locations: Write Everything Down

#256

Post by farslan »

cookiecaper wrote: post #216
farslan wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do it here are DigitalOcean and it's just awesome. We have people in NYC HQ and remote all over the world (for example I'm working from Turkey). The key is not only over communication, also to care about your remote employees, let them feel like they're really a part of the company, bring them to the HQ, not per year, multiple times, etc.. There are many things but so far DigitalOcean is one of the best companies…

I'll be contrarian here and say that I actually hate that most remote companies make frequent on-site travel part of the job and pretend like it's a perk. Travel, including on-site visits and "group retreats", are not perks for me. I have a family and a life where I'm at and part of the reason I like to be remote is because it allows me to be productive with minimal impact on other things (e.g., don't have to waste 2…

I also have a son and I understand you. You don't have to go btw and it's not mandatory. However it's encouraged and you're welcome to go and visit. So there is a big difference there!

Re: GitLab’s Secret to Managing Employees in 160 Locations: Write Everything Down

#257

Post by pm »

hashnsalt wrote: post #144
lallysingh wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UX is objectively measured. I don't know why people think it's subjective.

If UX was fully objectively measured, wouldn't Gitlab, Github, and Bitbucket all look and feel the same?

An objective measure of metrics does not necessarily imply there is a single optimal solution.

Re: GitLab’s Secret to Managing Employees in 160 Locations: Write Everything Down

#258

Post by mikekchar »

rqebmm wrote: post #107
Perihelion wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I haven't seen a company that does the hybrid remote/on-site thing well. I'm sure they exist, but every time I've worked at one the people who were remote were out of the loop on almost everything. Hybrid remote/on-site requires some great discipline. If you have a watercooler chat with someone about a feature, it's easy to forget that a remote colleague wasn't there for the discussion/not document what was…

MY company does hybrid remote/on-site, and one of the best ways to mitigate issues with off-site communication is part-time work from home. Since on-site workers spend some of their time as remote workers, everyone has a good idea of what's required to empower remote developers. It's not always roses and rainbows, but it definitely helps.

The company I work for does hybrid remote/onsite as well. I'm remote and I actually think that having onsite people take some remote days is almost required to get things working. After people take a couple of days remote they suddenly understand the issues a lot better.

Also for me, not always roses and rainbows. But that mutual understanding is really helpful.

Re: GitLab’s Secret to Managing Employees in 160 Locations: Write Everything Down

#259

Post by BlackFingolfin »

kartickv wrote: post #255
scruple wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I believe you must be. I'm referring to where the OP said that as a remote employee I feel out of the loop on a lot of things. So, I tell my manager that I'm missing important information about the projects I'm working on because people have these infrequent, but important, impromptu meetings and those details don't exist outside of those spoken words and their heads and his response is to tell me to come to the…

You ARE asking them to modify their behavior when you say that they should use Slack/email/whatever other tool for your benefit, or that they shouldn't have an impromptu chat around the water cooler because you're not around. Since you're in the minority, you can't demand the majority change their working style for you. It's up to you to fit in to how the majority works, say by showing up in the office. Or you'll mis…

I think you still missed the point: If he is there every now and then, then he still has missed all the water cooler discussions that happened while he was not there. It's not as if they will see him and say "ah, right, now that I see you, we discussed this and this last week when you are not here.".

The only way to fix this is with some concious effort to reproduce the results of water cooler discussions explictly -- and if you spend that effort anyway, you might just as well do it via Skype or Slack... He doesn't have to be on-site.

Re: GitLab’s Secret to Managing Employees in 160 Locations: Write Everything Down

#260

Post by mikekchar »

scruple wrote: post #177
Perihelion wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I haven't seen a company that does the hybrid remote/on-site thing well. I'm sure they exist, but every time I've worked at one the people who were remote were out of the loop on almost everything. Hybrid remote/on-site requires some great discipline. If you have a watercooler chat with someone about a feature, it's easy to forget that a remote colleague wasn't there for the discussion/not document what was…

Yep, this is absolutely correct in my experiences. I'll chime in, since I'm a remote employee at a company that is hybrid remote/on-site but with the vast majority of employees being on-site. Long story short: I actually started on-site but negotiated part-time remote. Then after about a year of that my spouse accepted a dream job offer on the other side of the state and so it was no question that we were moving. The…

I think there are a couple of challenges. You are right that it is hard for people to understand how easy it is to get out of the loop. On the other hand too, if you are in a team with people who are politically motivated, it's pretty easy for them to actively exclude you if they think you are danger to their goals.

For me (being remote and even 9 time zones away), I've tried to scale back my own ambitions. It's hard because I've worked as an agile coach for a long time, so I'm used to having quite a lot of influence. I think trying to reinvent yourself to work for other people's success can be useful.

It can be a different style of political game. You need to show how they are better off with you than without you. It's not nearly as depressing as I'm sure this sounds. Just a different way of making a contribution.

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