Tag: GitLab

Reflection: The second half of my sixth year at GitLab

Hard to believe it’s been 6 years, and I certainly didn’t imagine working outside of Product and Engineering at any point until it happened. Check out the last reflection post if you’re wondering what happened in the first half of the sixth year, namely how I wrapped up my work in Support, and moved to the Chief of Staff to CEO Team, now called the Office of the CEO (OCEO). Continue reading “Reflection: The second half of my sixth year at GitLab”

Reflection: The first half of my sixth year at GitLab: helping other (Support Engineers) and leaving Support

It’s a bit mind boggling to me that I’m talking about my sixth year at GitLab. It’s not quite been half (5 months), but as I’m internally transferring out of Support, I thought this was a good place to break up “the year”.

First time readers may want to check out my previous reflection posts. Continue reading “Reflection: The first half of my sixth year at GitLab: helping other (Support Engineers) and leaving Support”

Internship for Learning: OKRs with Chief of Staff (Team) to CEO

Since I finished the first one, I have been doing a second internship for learning with the Chief of Staff Team to CEO. If you would like to know what an internship for learning is, and why I chose to do one, take a look at the reflection post from my first internship for learning (just internship for short from here on out).

Even though I haven’t technically finished, since I’m done the majority of the work, I thought it was the right time to do a reflection. Continue reading “Internship for Learning: OKRs with Chief of Staff (Team) to CEO”

Presentation: A Public Handbook: Building trust with the team, customers, and beyond

How do you build trust before you ever interact with others? A public handbook! Having a handbook publicly available provides lots of benefits including consistency for the team, being literally on the same page as a customer, and providing the opportunity to collaborate with others, such as the Support community.

Presented at Support Driven Expo 2023. Continue reading “Presentation: A Public Handbook: Building trust with the team, customers, and beyond”

Reflection: The last third of my fifth year at GitLab and expanding Staff Support Engineer

Normally, my blog post would have been up sooner, but I was on a break for a couple of weeks when my work anniversary came around.

This year’s blog posts were also broken up into smaller parts, so this one only covers February 2023 to mid-June 2023.

If you haven’t read them already, you may want to take a look at my first fifth year reflection post and my reflection on being the Acting Chief of Staff to CTO for our fourth quarter to get a sense of what I’ve been doing so far in my fifth year. If you’re a first time reader, you may want to read one or more of my previous reflections posts for more context. Continue reading “Reflection: The last third of my fifth year at GitLab and expanding Staff Support Engineer”

Internship for Learning: TeamOps (Chief of Staff Team to CEO)

I recently did an internship for learning with the Chief of Staff Team (CoST) to CEO, specifically with Laurel Farrer on TeamOps. Since the internship is quite different from my regular work, I thought it best to do a blog post on it and reflect on the experience. Continue reading “Internship for Learning: TeamOps (Chief of Staff Team to CEO)”

Write the Docs 2023 Lightning Talk: Docs as Code: Automation the Developer way

This is the script and slides for what I prepared as a lighting talk for the Write the Docs 2023 Portland conference. Sadly, I did not get a slot, so it was not presented. Continue reading “Write the Docs 2023 Lightning Talk: Docs as Code: Automation the Developer way”

Reflection: Acting Chief of Staff to CTO at GitLab

For our company’s fourth quarter (Q4, November 2022 to January 2023), I was the Acting Chief of Staff to CTO. In February, I’m getting back into my regular role as a Staff Support Engineer, while also spending a little bit of time transitioning anything left and ensuring any “loose threads” are tied up. Since there’s quite a bit to write about, and the role is so different from my regular role, I thought it deserved its own post. Continue reading “Reflection: Acting Chief of Staff to CTO at GitLab”

TeamOps: Ensuring a Single Source of Truth (SSoT) at scale

Note: This was an “assignment” for TeamOps training, but thought I might as well post it here!

In small organizations, it’s generally easy to know what is the definitive source of truth since there aren’t that many places to look. Often, the source of truth is a particular document, or person. However, as organizations grow, different people or teams often remember or document the same things in different ways, and in different places. This is why it’s important to have a Single Source of Truth (SSoT). Continue reading “TeamOps: Ensuring a Single Source of Truth (SSoT) at scale”

Reflection: First third of my fifth year at GitLab and defining Staff Support Engineer

Normally, I wait until at least the half-year mark to do a reflection post, but this year for the 4th quarter, I am doing a rotation for the Acting Chief of Staff to CTO role, which deserves its own post. So, I’m doing the first reflection post now to cover mid-June 2022 to the end of October 2022.

If you’re a first time reader, you may want to read one or more of my previous reflections posts. Continue reading “Reflection: First third of my fifth year at GitLab and defining Staff Support Engineer”