GitLab: Leveraging "Fully Remote" as a Competitive Advantage in Corporate Design

GitLab Inc. (GitLab), an American technology company that develops/provides GitLab, a DevOps platform for modern software development including version control tools and CI/CD, is a fully remote company with approximately 2,000 employees worldwide.

Remote work has become a widely accepted new way of working in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there are various issues such as communication breakdown, management difficulties, and employee burnout, and now that the spread of the coronavirus has calmed down, many companies have started to return to the office.

In this article, we introduce GitLab’s corporate design and operational methods that support a fully remote and asynchronous work style, offering insights into next-generation organizational models and work practices.

GitLab History

GitLab began as a personal project of software engineer Dmitriy Zaporozhets (founder). Zaporozhets started developing it as an open source project in 2011.

Sid Sijbrandij (co-founder and current CEO), another software engineer who had long been impressed by the beauty of Zaporozhets' publicly available code, Impressed by Zaporozhets’ tweet expressing his desire to work on the GitLab project full-time, Sijbrandij reached out to him. Zaporozhets' tweet that he wanted to work on the GitLab project full time, and contacted him. Their meeting led to the founding of GitLab Inc. in 2014.

In his S-1 at the time of GitLab's listing, Sid Sijbrandij recounted Zaporozhets' pre-founding days as follows.

In 2011, my co-founder, Dmitriy Zaporozhets, created GitLab from his house in Ukraine. It was a house without running water, but Dmitriy felt that not having a great collaboration tool was a bigger problem than his daily trip to the communal well.¹]

The company's GitLab is a DevOps platform for modern software development, including version control, issue management, code review, and CI/CD.

Initially a latecomer compared to the similar 'GitHub' service, GitLab gradually increased its user base, fueled by feature enhancements and a shift of users following Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub. After being selected by the global accelerator Y Combinator and multiple rounds of procurement, the company was listed on the NASDAQ market in October 2021 with a market capitalization of approximately 1.2 trillion yen (exchange rate at the time).

Today, it is a major service with approximately 2,000 employees from over 60 countries and more than 3,000² Code contributors, and is used by many of the world's leading enterprise companies, including Goldman Sachs, NVIDIA, and T Mobile. ³

Open Source Software (OSS) for the enterprise is an area where market expansion is expected to continue, and the company is expected to grow further.

GitLab's distinctive corporate design

GitLab’s corporate design and operational approach are distinctly aimed at fostering an autonomous and decentralized organization. In this chapter, we will look specifically at the following

1. All Remote - All 2,000 employees are fully remote
2. Handbook - everything is documented
3. Internal Communication - Slack rather than meetings
4. Minimum Viable Change - break it down into smallest units and get feedback quickly
5. Managers of One - be your own manager
6. Informal Communication - various mechanisms to trigger interaction

1. All Remote - All 2,000 employees are fully remote

Since its founding in 2014, GitLab has consistently operated without an office, and is fully remote. Today, we have approximately 2,000 employees from over 60 countries around the world, but as always, everyone works full remote, including our CEO and other C-level executives.

Everything from hiring and onboarding to firing employees is done remotely, and the only time employees officially meet in person is once a year at the "GitLab Contribute," a multi-day camp where employees gather offline for free. The only time employees officially meet in person is once a year at "GitLab Contribute," an offline camp where employees gather for several days. Before the Corona Disaster, it was held in Greece, Mexico, etc.).

Previous GitLab Contributes (Formerly Summits) https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/contribute/previous/

Because employees are distributed around the world with different time zones, there are no set working hours (core hours) and employees are allowed to work when they want. Therefore, asynchronous working is the basic working style, including internal communication as described below.

This fully remote work style, which differs from the traditional office or hybrid models that are more common today, gives GitLab a significant advantage in recruiting talented individuals worldwide, without geographical restrictions. This has also contributed to the diversity of the organization by allowing a diverse workforce from all over the world.

From an individual perspective, it is easier to continue building a career at GitLab without being forced to change jobs or leave for personal reasons, such as a spouse relocating, childcare, or nursing care. It’s evident that GitLab’s all-remote approach significantly enhances the careers, personal lives, and engagement of its employees.

What makes All remote possible are a number of corporate design and structure features that we will examine in the next section.

2. Handbook - Document Everything

One of the bottlenecks in remote work is a lack of communication that prevents information and practices from being shared, and prevents guidelines and culture from fully penetrating the workforce. GitLab addresses this issue with a wiki-like tool called the 'Handbook'⁴, which all employees can view and edit. The handbook comprehensively documents the company’s mission, vision, operating guidelines, work and meeting tips, detailed onboarding guides, payroll information, manuals, and more, totaling over 2,700 pages³.

The handbook is also available to the public on the web, and can be viewed by anyone in the world. （It is also possible to propose updates through GitLab's "Merge request" (of the product), and updates are made frequently. The Handbook is a symbol of the company's core culture of information transparency and the OSS philosophy.

In fact, GitLab advocates "working handbook-first" and places great importance on the existence and content of the handbook. The handbook serves as a basis for employees to make decisions when they have problems or concerns, and by having it well documented, new employees and other employees with the same questions can avoid asking the same questions at a later date, which greatly contributes to achieving operations with low communication costs.

OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) set by each department and team are also documented in the handbook and disclosed to all employees, along with the degree of achievement. This allows for a better understanding of the work of other departments and teams, their ideas, and the direction they are aiming for, and facilitates support and collaboration among teams and departments.

Although maintaining and updating documentation requires significant time, the transparency and accessibility of accurate, comprehensive information lead to more efficient and faster workflows in the medium to long term. Thus, GitLab's handbook is a source of competitive advantage for a fully remote and asynchronous way of working.

3. Internal Communication - Slack over Meetings

Internal communication at GitLab is asynchronous and open to the public. Because of time differences and other differences in working hours, "we have a well-established style of working on the assumption that the other person is not in front of a screen," he says. ⁵

Daily communication is encouraged to be text-based (asynchronous) using the company's public Slack channel, rather than videoconferencing such as Zoom or email. Slack usage at GitLab emphasizes minimizing DMs that can’t be viewed by others and encourages posting in public channels whenever possible.

With the exception of 1-on-1 meetings (1-on-1 is recommended for chatting and mentoring), the practice of considering whether meetings are necessary in the first place and whether they can be held asynchronously via Slack or GitLab Issues has taken root, and holding meetings is not necessarily recommended. In fact, the handbook includes instructions on how to decline meetings.

When you are thinking carefully about a difficult issue or concentrating on a task, frequent meetings or being approached from the seat next to you interrupts your ability to enter a focused flow state and prevents you from doing quality work." From a "deep work" perspective, GitLab encourages asynchronous communication.

An asynchronous mindset enables everyone to take a step back and assume that whatever we're doing is done with no one else online. It removes the burden of an endless string of messages you must respond to immediately.

When holding a meeting, the meeting organizer is required to prepare an agenda in advance, and to distribute it to the participants in advance (advocating "No agenda, no attenda"). Participants are also expected to prepare for the meeting by confirming the content and preparing questions in advance.

Naturally, meetings are strictly punctual. It is also interesting to note that Zoom is used for videoconferencing, but the camera is turned on in principle. This is because the more the camera is on, the more information is obtained through the participants' facial expressions and body language, and the higher quality of face-to-face communication facilitates asynchronous communication afterwards. ⁵

Recording meetings is encouraged for those who cannot attend or are in different time zones, and detailed minutes are kept to ensure that anyone who missed the meeting can catch up later.

(The company is careful to keep confidential information, including client names, out of the meetings that are scheduled to be made public.)

In addition to these, the handbook contains other unique meeting rules.

• It is acceptable to do other things during the meeting that prevent you from focusing on the meeting.
• It is acceptable to participate in company meetings during lunch time while eating (but the microphone must be turned off)
• Children, pets, etc. are welcome to be caught on camera to stimulate communication

4. Minimum Viable Change - Break it down to the smallest units and get feedback quickly

As a tech company with many software engineers working at GitLab, the methods and philosophies of software development seem to be ingrained in the way we do all of our work.

The company actively uses GitLab to implement good software development practices, such as the code review and approval process through GitLab's Merge requests, and version control, which keeps track of past changes and updates.

GitLab has a principle called "Minimum Viable Change. The person in charge of a task, such as code or documentation, divides it into smaller units and passes it on to the next person or reviewer, even if it is not time-consuming and not yet finished.

By adopting this approach, the entire workflow is not halted or stalled by waiting for someone in particular to complete their work. It also allows other members of the team to point out problems at an early stage and to incorporate a wide range of knowledge and feedback, thereby continuously and efficiently raising the degree of completion of the product.

GitLab Values (Iteration) "We do the smallest thing possible and get it out as quickly as possible."⁴

By committing in small increments and early, other members can see what the person is working on and what they are having trouble with. This will also help prevent conflicts and duplication of efforts. More to the point, it is also expected to have the effect of bringing the necessary confidence and momentum to the team by allowing them to feel the tempo of success and progress, even in small initiatives.

5. Managers of One - Managers themselves

GitLab's management approach is also unique.

Being in a fully remote environment, managers are not able to sit next to their team members and give detailed management and direction. Therefore, each employee is expected to have the mindset that he or she is his or her own manager and to take leadership and ownership of the company. However, the foundation of management lies in the self-leadership and self-direction of each member.

Since employees are evaluated based on their performance, not on the length of their working hours, there are no set rules for how to spend the day, and time management is left to each individual employee. Managers are not expected to micromanage their members, and "managers should not mention working hours unless they are concerned about members working long hours," says CEO Sid Sijbrandij. ⁶

Rather, GitLab managers' primary job is to care for members, encourage and motivate growth, and facilitate asynchronous processes. While the company does not necessarily encourage synchronous meetings, it does recommend weekly 1-on-1s between managers and members, which suggests that the company places a high priority on achieving the above through 1-on-1 consultations and chats.

General management tends to be micromanagement, such as giving instructions to team members and managing tasks based on the premise of synchronous work. However, the most important job of a manager at GitLab, which is asynchronous and fully remote, is to help/support team members, and I feel that servant leadership is required.

6. Informal Communication - Various mechanisms to induce interaction

One of the concerns about working full remotely is employee mental health, such as burnout and isolation, and GitLab consciously incorporates designs that encourage interaction and informal communication among members to prevent these issues.

Examples include

• Coffee chat: We encourage active, casual communication. The pairing application Donut can also be used to randomly pair employees with each other, allowing paired employees to communicate with people they would not normally interact with through 1-on-1 chats and self-introductions.
• Informal Slack channel: Many channels are created in Slack for different hobbies and themes, and communication related to hobbies and themes occurs on a daily basis.
• Social hour: Lunch meetings using Zoom, pizza parties, and question time where people can freely ask questions to the management⁶.
• Team DJ Zoom Room: A DJ room is set up in Zoom. Members who listen to the DJ can gain a sense of unity and communication by listening to common music with other members while immersing themselves in their work.
• Coworking call: People gather online at set times to collaborate on the same task, or to chat while working.

In a remote work environment, communication is often low, and it is difficult to establish on/off boundaries, which can lead to poor communication and overwork. At GitLab, many unique systems encourage communication, interaction, and serendipity outside of work to help prevent these issues.

Conclusion.

In a 2017 interview, when asked, 'What is the hardest part of running a fully remote company?' Sid Sijbrandij immediately responded, 'Fundraising'. It is interesting to note that when asked, "What is the hardest thing about having everyone work remotely? At the time, many investors were concerned that working fully remotely would be detrimental to the growth of the organization, and they had a very difficult time raising funds. ⁷

Gitlab's Secret to Managing 160 Employees in 160 Locations - Y Combinator https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e56PbkJdmZ8

Now that remote work has become a civil right after the Corona disaster, it is presumed that it is accepted differently than it was back then. However, GitLab's advocacy of "all remote" and the corporate design and culture that makes it a reality may not be something that everyone can easily accept and imitate.

For example, many employees will need to be familiar with the concepts of git and branching, GitLab (product) operations, communication tools such as Zoom, and a certain degree of familiarity with technology. In fact, he says that the process of handbook revision using a combination of Markdown and Merge requests is not for everyone. ⁵

Since textual communication will be the main focus, writing skills to write documents concisely and understandably, as well as care and concern for expression, will be essential in all communications. This is also not something that everyone can do easily from the start, and requires a certain amount of training and familiarity.

In addition, because it is difficult for managers to control and monitor employees (and they are not supposed to do so in the first place), employees are placed in an environment where it is easy for them to slack off, in a sense. Each employee must have the ability to discipline and motivate himself/herself to achieve high performance, as well as the self-discipline to maintain his/her own health and mental health.

It will be interesting to see how GitLab's fully remote and asynchronous corporate design will manifest itself in its PLs and KPIs, and how it will differentiate itself from the competition. As far as we can confirm from the company's disclosures, it has posted a net loss for three consecutive fiscal years, and is now in a phase where its true value will be tested amidst the headwinds of the macro environment. (Like other tech companies, it announced layoffs (equivalent to 7% of its total workforce) in February 2023⁸)

On the other hand, GitLab's competitive edge in recruiting through full remotes, low-cost operations due to no offices, and efficient operations enabled by handbooks, etc., are major competitive advantages that competitors cannot easily emulate. In fact, the company's ratio of selling, general, and administrative expenses (as a percentage of sales) is trending downward compared to when the company was unlisted, and may become even more effective through further penetration and improvement. We will continue to monitor the company's future trends closely.

We have introduced GitLab's unique corporate design and management approach, in which all employees work fully remotely. We hope this article has provided you with an opportunity to consider the next generation of organizations and how to create an environment that maximizes individual performance.

References

• GitLab: Can “All Remote” scale? / INSEAD
• GitLab and the Future of All-Remote Work / Harvard Business School
• GitLab: work where you want, when you want / Journal of Organization Design