
GitLab Handbook - sarathyweb
https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/
======
nbulka
I applied for an Engineering role at Gitlab. I didn't make it past the initial
interview screening and politely asked for feedback in order to grow
professionally.

I never heard back from the recruiter or company after that yet their handbook
says:

"If the candidate asks for further feedback, only offer frank feedback. This
is hard, but it is part of our company values."

I always wondered if it was because I questioned the policy of paying people
differently based on their location (more specifically, some algorithm's idea
of the rent in their area) rather than the work they do.

~~~
piokoch
Nowadays (almost) no one will give you post-interview feedback. The risk of
being sued for "discrimination" because of whatever made-up reason is just too
high. In the World when more and more people belong to unknown 3 months
earlier "oppressed minority" nobody wants to take chances.

The funniest story I read the other day on HN was about some company which
needed to fire 10% of their employees. After consulting with the lawyers,
consulting company they have hired to help in the process they decided to take
a contractor, who would not have any knowledge about employees. That
contractor's only job was to randomly select 10% of people to fire. Simple,
cheap, safe, no risk of being sued, maybe they have fired some people who
would be worth to keep (if they really wish they could hire them back anyway).

This is the sad World we live in.

~~~
mhd
> In the World when more and more people belong to unknown 3 months earlier
> "oppressed minority" nobody wants to take chances.

Oh come on. What country are you living in where they only managed to catch up
with civil rights in the last three months? Last added protected class in the
US was 2014, if I recall correctly.

Can't we keep those "we live in a society" posts confined to reddit?

------
orf
Gitlab Unfiltered[1] is pretty cool. Say what you want about Gitlab, but they
go hard on the openness aspect of things. I can't think of another company
that is on the same level as them - streaming meetings and other stuff on
Youtube almost seems like overkill.

1\.
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMtZ0sc1HHNtGGWZFDRTh5A/](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMtZ0sc1HHNtGGWZFDRTh5A/)

~~~
stonogo
They're open when it doesn't matter. When it does, they go just as hard in the
other direction: [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/diversity-and-
inclusion/issues...](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/diversity-and-
inclusion/issues/48)

About which more here:
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/06/gitlab_sales_women/](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/06/gitlab_sales_women/)

~~~
oblio
The first link 404s.

~~~
relaunched
I believe the company determined that diversity and inclusion issues are
private by default - they used to be pubic.

------
warpech
Valve is famous for their handbook, too:
[https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/21/2964991/valves-
handbook-f...](https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/21/2964991/valves-handbook-for-
new-employees-leak)

------
Dramatize
I like the section on the CEO:
[https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ceo/#flaws](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ceo/#flaws)

~~~
woutr_be
For some reason, that rubs me the wrong way. I had a manager who acted the
same way, told us all his flaws and then expected us to cater towards him,
without him making much effort. If anything went wrong, and we somehow didn't
cater to his flaws, he would blame us for it.

He also came into one of our retrospectives, and said "I'm feeling really
emotional today, so I might act a bit strange". Everyone asked him to leave so
the rest of the team could have our retrospective, but he insisted on stay and
just asked everyone to be aware of it. Of course nothing productive came out
of that meeting, in fact, I'm pretty sure that's why a few engineers resigned.

~~~
rkangel
I was pretty impressed with the tone of that section. It was very clearly
giving people permission to pick him up on it when one of those traits came
up, which is the opposite of your example.

The interesting question to me is whether the CEO needs to be a special case.
We all have flaws, how should this be handled? Surely the important thing is
that the company culture is such that people feel ok with (politely) pointing
out these behaviours? Or is the CEO always going to be a special case where
they're constantly in contact withe people many layers below them and that
isn't a realistic expectation?

------
durpleDrank
Their handbook is better documentation than what they offer for the product.

~~~
harrisonjackson
We've recently migrated to them from github + jira + self-hosted jenkins +
self-hosted private npm. Do you have a specific gripe? We definitely have
fewer issues with them than those other services combined.

------
beckingz
GitLab's SQL style guide is one of the best I've seen.

~~~
veritas3241
We link to three others at the bottom of our guide that have heavily inspired
us [https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/business-ops/data-
team/sql...](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/business-ops/data-team/sql-
style-guide/#other-sql-style-guides) Thanks for the kind words!

* [https://github.com/fishtown-analytics/corp/blob/master/dbt_c...](https://github.com/fishtown-analytics/corp/blob/master/dbt_coding_conventions.md#sql-style-guide) * [https://github.com/mattm/sql-style-guide](https://github.com/mattm/sql-style-guide) * [https://gist.github.com/fredbenenson/7bb92718e19138c20591](https://gist.github.com/fredbenenson/7bb92718e19138c20591)

------
gregkerzhner
For an alternative fully remote company that pays people based on their
skills, not where they happen to live, check out InVision!

------
dang
Related from 2016:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12091638](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12091638)

------
pibefision
I will buy this handbook as a real book. It's great content. I know it changes
all the time, but buy it as an Nth edition will be great.

------
__initbrian__
[https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/global-
compen...](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/global-
compensation/calculator/)

