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”
Tag: 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”
Presentation: Everyone Can Contribute: Making Support Effective Through Contributions
Everyone dreams of talking to someone who can solve their problem. Opening up ways for Support team members to contribute to documentation and code will improve the customer experience and the company’s efficiency and we can prove it!.
Presented at Support Driven Expo 2022. Continue reading “Presentation: Everyone Can Contribute: Making Support Effective Through Contributions”
Reflection: Second half of my fourth year at GitLab and becoming Staff
Fourth anniversary! When I started at GitLab, I was wondering if I’d be here for 2 years, let alone 4 and counting. If you haven’t read it yet, I recommend reading the reflection on the first half of my fourth year though it’s not necessary to know what I’ve been up to during the last 6 months specifically, which is covered here. Continue reading “Reflection: Second half of my fourth year at GitLab and becoming Staff”
Summary and Thoughts on Being/Becoming a Staff Support Engineer
I recently organized an AMA on Being and Becoming a Staff Support Engineer. This was meant to be similar to last year’s Being/Becoming a Senior Support Engineer. Normally, I would have actually waited longer to do it, since I only got promoted in February and I feel like I haven’t been working at the Staff level very long. However, at the end of May, our other Staff Support Engineer, Will Chandler was transferring to the development team. So, I decided before he transferred would be a good time to have the AMA. Additionally, I invited Drew Blessing, our first Staff Support Engineer (who had transferred to development a couple years ago) to also join the group of people answering questions.
This is not just a summary of the answers from that AMA session though. I’ve tried to put the answers and thoughts together with the previous video that I recorded with Lyle Kozloff while I was still working on becoming Staff, and some additional insights. Continue reading “Summary and Thoughts on Being/Becoming a Staff Support Engineer”
Evolution of the GitLab Support Portal landing page 2018-2022
While I touched on them in my first year and second year reflection blog posts, I didn’t really discuss the changes of the GitLab Support Portal landing page. So, I thought with the launch of the latest revision, it was the best time to put together a short blog post. Continue reading “Evolution of the GitLab Support Portal landing page 2018-2022”
Reflection: First half of my fourth year at GitLab and getting more involved
Normally, I post a reflection once a year, but so much has happened during the fourth year already that I felt the need to split it up into two and write about the first 6 months of my fourth year to make sure the reflection didn’t get too long.
If you’re a first time reader, I recommend reading at least the previous reflection post about my third year at GitLab for more context. Continue reading “Reflection: First half of my fourth year at GitLab and getting more involved”
Reflection on my CEO shadow rotation at GitLab
I spent 2 weeks being a CEO shadow at GitLab, and thought I’d reflect a bit on my experience. If you’d like a more thorough write up, check out Darren Murph’s takeaways and lessons learned blog post, or check out the CEO Shadow YouTube playlist. Continue reading “Reflection on my CEO shadow rotation at GitLab”
Summary and Thoughts on Being/Becoming a Senior Support Engineer at GitLab
Ever since becoming a Senior Support team member at GitLab, I’ve had various conversations about becoming and being a Senior level team member; even more so after I became a Senior Support Engineer (SSE). A couple of recent conversations made me realize that a lot of team members have questions and we should have a way to share the answers, so I organized “Ask Us Anything” (AUA) sessions on Being and Becoming a Senior Support Engineer. Continue reading “Summary and Thoughts on Being/Becoming a Senior Support Engineer at GitLab”
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