 Thank you for joining our GitLab Culture and Open House today. I am your host and the moderator, Candace Bertson-Williams, I'm the Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Manager here at GitLab. With me today I'll have each one of our panelists who are also team member resource group members introduce themselves. Wayne, can you tell us a little bit about who you are, your role and journey here at GitLab? Sure. Wayne Haber, Director of Engineering for the Threat Management Team and on the engineering building portions of the GitLab product and adding security features. Great. Thanks, Wayne. Taylor, can you introduce yourself, the same tell us a little bit about your journey and what you do here at GitLab. Hi everyone, my name is Taylor McCastlin, I'm the Senior Product Manager working on cyber security tools here at GitLab and based in Austin, Texas. Thanks, Taylor. Next we have Jackie. I'm Jackie Porter, day to day I'm a Senior Product Manager in the OP section where I spend my time working with customers to make our release management products lovable. I'm a part of the Women in Product ERG Group as well as Women Plus and Minorities in Tech. Thanks so much, Jackie. The following we have Anthony. Anthony, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you're joining here at GitLab and what you do? Yes, sure. So I am based in London at the moment, working with self-organization, so helping your companies up to about 2,000 employees understand how to use GitLab and get the most out of it. Also in the Minorities in Tech group, so I can just share some of this with you. Thank you for that. Just for the sake of this being an inclusive event and talking about how we work remotely before I get into some of the questions, can we just take a moment too to say where you are located globally? I think that really adds value to those who are in attendance today. So I didn't mention I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. Wonderful. Taylor? I'm in Texas and I'm part of the LGBTQ group. Wonderful. My group is representing the generational differences. Thank you. I'm also in Austin, Texas. I mentioned my groups earlier. Thank you. And Anthony, where are you located and the TMRG that you're representing? Yes, I'm in London and represent Minorities in Tech. So, yeah. Wonderful. Wonderful. So let's have a quick chat and start talking about some of the questions we have today. I would like to talk with Jackie and can you tell me a little bit about how your experience here at GitLab has been different than your experience at other companies? Yeah, I would say I've been a couple of different software companies and I started my journey in my career field and construction. So I can say I have a wide perspective of working with different personalities and people. And the thing that has really stood out to me in GitLab is the reliance on self-motivation and the individual purpose that everyone has to have at GitLab as a teammate. You have to be responsible for yourself as a DRI in driving your purpose forward here at GitLab and communicating with others. It's super important in an async environment to reach out and make sure that you do form connections with others so that you're in a consistent working environment. Also to make sure that your projects are working as expected. Being driven and passionate and ambitious is sort of the fabric that every one of us has, which is something that's really cool about our culture is that it binds us together. We're all facing the same direction because that's kind of what we breathe. And it was definitely a surprising and differentiating aspect about GitLab. I love that. I really do. I think about all the things that you said and it speaks to our values and speaking of values, the same question to you, Wayne. Like, you know, how has your experience here been different than any experience at other companies? Can you tell me a little bit about that? So we are the most transparent company in the world, I believe. And we're transparent both inside and outside the company. And it's exciting. It's really effective for collaboration and sometimes a little scary, especially since I came, I come from a security company where confidentiality was paramount. But even if it wasn't a security company, it would still be that way. So being transparent allows a significant communication and collaboration both inside the company and outside with customers, with open source users, with prospects, with competitors, with bad actors, hackers out there. So you have to really keep an eye on that. And whenever I say anything or the team says anything, keep in mind who's reading it on both inside and outside the company so that we're saying the right thing. So that's been my experience. I love that. I love that. So in regards to that saying, speaking to that same question and talking about the same aspects, Taylor, can you give me a little bit of feedback on that as well? I agree with Wayne a lot here. I'm very excited to be working in the open. I come from an open source software background. So by default, that is working in the open. And I'm thrilled to be at a company now where that is what we do by default. And I think particularly being a product person here, I think a lot of times businesses and traditional tech companies try to keep everything quiet and closed and secret because what they're doing is special or unique. And most of the time in tech, it's not at all. And by being open and transparent, everything we do every single day, you can go to my GitLab profile and see what I'm up to. You can read about the decisions about why we're making certain choices in our product. And I think that when you do that openly, you make better choices. You're more inclusive with the choices that you make. You build better products. I think that's fundamentally true. And so to see that work at a company as large as we are, I think is really gratifying. And like I said, it just helps us build better products, which is what I'm here to do. I love that. You really stated many of our values. And so what I hear is a theme is the transparency. And to that, Antony, what are your thoughts on that very same question? And maybe you have some thoughts leading in and stepping in with transparency as you're beginning. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I would say transparency as well, but to mix it up, I think one thing that stood up for me is just everything at GitLab is intentional. So everything that we do that gets built on the handbook, which will rely on the handbook in regards to how we interact with each other in regards to how to get promoted, or how to grow your professional career at GitLab, everything is written down somewhere. And what that told me initially is that there's a lot of thought that's been going into how the company operates, given that it's for node-based. And so I think that is something that I find quite special because it tells me there's a lot of thought that's going into the process and mechanics of how the team and the company works. I love that. It really brings me to a thought of a follow-up question. And I want to ask yourself and Taylor this. And that is speaking about the TMRGs. And Taylor, earlier, you spoke about the openness and things like that. How has GitLab made you feel accepted and supported here? Like, what does that look like? I don't know if I'm going to speak to some of the same things you said, but I'm curious to know your thoughts in this space. Yeah, so this is interesting for me because this is my first remote and asynchronous company. And that is a product manager. It's just a really different transition and way of working. And so literally knowing that there is no one over my shoulder watching what I'm doing every single day creates this sort of challenge of the really sort of excites my imposter syndrome, where if no one's seen that I'm doing the work, how do I know that I'm doing the work? How do I visualize that? And I think at GitLab, we've got a supportive culture that really just says it's not about when you're working, when the green light is on in your Slack. No one's watching that. Particularly, I'm a night owl. I love working late at night. I don't know why, that's when I do my best work. And so not having anyone like watching what I'm doing, as long as the work gets done, it doesn't matter when it's getting done and we're a globally distributed company. So actually, I really enjoy coming online late at night because I get to work with some of our Australian counterparts. My technical writer is in Australia. So it's always fun to be in that time zone because I like working in nights. I love the flexibility of getting to know our team members from around the globe. It really makes me feel connected. And that's one of the aspects I really value here at GitLab. And so, Tana, the same question to you, Antony. Like, what does GitLab do that really makes you feel accepted and supported? Yeah, I think, Taylor and Elda, I think definitely I would describe it as being people-centric. So when I first started GitLab, I remember my first week, so even the first day, I would say, I joined the call and people were like, yeah, welcome to the team. If you need to go for a walk, it's completely fine during the day, taking that. And I was like, I know it's in the handle, but is this really how it works? I don't want to do anything wrong on my first day. And they're like, no, this is exactly how it works at GitLab. And so I think, for me, that was just kind of mind-blowing in terms of, like Taylor said, there's this independence trusting you to do your work. And I think that is something that has been really cool, even just obviously with everything that's been going on in the world recently with sort of race relations, being encouraged to take time off work and actually spend time with family right from the top, from VP sort of reaching out directly. I think that, for me, was really powerful to sort of really reiterate the message that this is not just a handbook element of our culture, but it's actually something that is breathed and believed by actually people at the company. I love that. It's a nice segue to, you know, you all are talking about feeling supported and accepted. And I would love to hear from Wayne and Jackie as it relates to the TMRGs directly. And, you know, in regards to that particular element for TMRGs, do you feel connected being a part of those? And I would like to hear from Wayne first if you don't mind speaking. Sure. So the generational differences, TMRG team member resource group is relatively new, just started a couple of months ago. However, I've been humbled by the honest and open discussions we've had on how age differences impact all aspects of work life. Like one example is somebody mentioned that they changed their physical appearance to fit in with their younger coworkers. And it was just kind of a, it jumped out at me as something is, you know, that's something that's important, you know, that is on people's minds. So we've had a lot of great discussions even though it's relatively new. I really like this question, Candice, but thank you for asking it. As I remember at a job back when I first started my career, feeling completely alone because I looked around a room and I was the only white female in the room, non-white female in the room. And it was really awkward for me. I couldn't articulate exactly why I felt like my voice didn't matter, but I could not express how alone I felt. And when I came here, I realized that there were actually groups of people that knew exactly what that sensation was like. And I joined teams, like the minorities in tech group and the women's plus RG group, RG. And it was finding those teams that understood what it was like to have a certain characteristic and what it meant to be a part of those groups in your identity. And what's great is that you can span multiple RGs. You don't have to be in just one. And that overlapping allows you to build these bonds and these relationships where you can kind of send these resources across, slack asynchronously and bond with one another just because you have this shared understanding and this shared lexicon of what's going on in the world because you come from that same environment. I think by focusing on these asynchronous communication patterns, you create a safe place at GitLab. And I also feel that the public nature of our company makes everyone have the same level of access to the information that other companies don't necessarily offer. And that really is afforded to you by having the TMRGs as available as we have today. Thank you for that, Jackie. And for the sake of those that are here at the Culture Open House today, our TMRGs stand for team member resource groups. And I'm sure you probably have read it in the information within the profile of this particular session. To that point, I know that a lot of what we want people to have is to have an understanding of how things work. And so in regards to, even though we all know how team member resource work, I would love to hear a little bit of feedback of how do you all like to pose a big work here and what kinds of things create a sense of belonging within those particular TMRGs. And I know you might have touched on it a little bit, but I would love you to start out, Anthony, and tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I said I'm based in London. So, given that, I guess, Skip Lab is a remote company, people across the world, it's really interesting, I guess, for me as a Black man to sort of understand the experiences of other people who are sort of, I guess, looked like me around the world. And I think particularly, again, that learning has been accelerated with everything that's happened this year. But I feel like with our group, we have regular calls with each other where you can sort of connect with different people. And it's just hear experiences from people who are Black and not Black, you know, and understand what are those similarities, differences, how can we just even have that conversation and engage with each other. So that's something that I've found to be really cool. I have really good friends who are not anywhere in my neighborhood, completely different from me, look the same to me. And I think that's something that the group has really provided me. So, love it. I love that. It really speaks to a testimony to what GitLab stands for with providing these opportunities in the space where you can connect and belong at the same time and feel it at the same time. And a person in the U.S. versus someone in the U.K., just even though they may both be Black, the experiences look different. So thank you for that answer. And Taylor, I would love to hear from you for the very same question. Of course, how has the TMRGs, how they created a sense of belonging as well as how does it work for the Pride TMRG? So the Pride TMRG is interesting because when you think about the LGBTQ community, you can't spot us necessarily. We don't look a certain way. Our community is very wide ranging in a lot of different groups of people. So part of what I like about GitLab is we're a global community. So I get to interact with LGBTQ people that I otherwise just would never have met, which gives you a lot better sort of mix of those people. And what I always laugh about is that when you join a company as an LGBTQ person, you get invited to the private Slack channel that all of the LGBTQ people have created. That is more formalized at GitLab. So it's part of the way that we work. So we've got a public LGBTQ channel where anyone in the company can come and show their support. We've also got a private channel for our LGBTQ employees to act as more of a safe space where we can have private conversations about what it means to have an LGBTQ identity. And I think this starts to allow you to intersect in a lot of interesting ways. So for example, the LGBTQ community deals with a lot of mental health issues and GitLab also has a mental health channel. So we can start helping people understand how different groups of people share the same problems. I frequently post in the mental health group and then share links into our LGBTQ channel. So you get this sort of like nice intersectionality between different groups, which I think we'll talk about here in a little bit as well. I love that some of the same sentiments that Jackie had mentioned a minute ago with being able to stand across those intersections and be present. And to your point visually, you can't see some things. They are only known if someone says that or your member of that. And so we operate an ally shift as well. So love that. Wayne, did you have any additional thoughts about the same question and how it works for maybe generational understanding or how it creates a sense of belonging or what that might reflect from your view? What I'd say is that everybody, it's not just in the handbook, but seeing the handbook and living it are two different things, living the culture. Everybody can contribute. And when we see things, not just in TMRGs, but especially in TMRGs, you see something that you wanna change in terms of how the company operates. You go do it. We, even though we're a new team, people have had some great ideas about changing things. They've put in merge requests to change the handbook, which is not too hard to do, even for folks who don't come from a really technical background, put in the change and someone who reviews it and it gets merged. And it's just really exciting to see that. I love it. I love the impact that we all create and we all contribute to, based on the layers that we have in the intersections. That said, we've talked a lot about the TMRGs, how we feel connected, how we belong, and our roles here at GitLab. I'm curious to know from each of you, how can we improve here at GitLab and celebrate in different identities? I think that's the biggest thing that when we talk about all the wonderful things and GitLab is great about transparency, that being said, how can we improve in celebrating these different identities? And I would love to start with you, Jackie. That's a really great question. Change has to sometimes happen from the top and I think that if we can enforce better practices around selecting and training representation of various identities within the organization, we will be creating those pillars of leadership and different identities at the very top so people can say, oh, that is me in a higher level at GitLab and it exists. I think once we coach and train and create those leaders representing various identities, we break down those barriers of diversity, inclusion, and belonging. We can also get stronger because the more perspectives that we bring to the table at that layer, the better our results will become. So I think that should be our first way to help improve this aspect of diversity at GitLab. Wonderful. Wayne's question for you. Yeah, what I'd say is the TMRG that I'm on is new. One thing that we've talked about is definitely focusing on differences in how people operate and what they prefer at different ages, but also focus on ageism in the technology industry. And like one thing we did, so we've just got to start that one thing we did recently. It was yesterday we had our sync discussion was to put an emerged request to make it so that candidates know that it's okay to take dates off of their resume, especially on when they graduated because that's, we're not going to assume that you didn't graduate or something else if you don't put a date on there because that's a way that people determine people's age. And we just want to make clear that we don't assume that and it's fine to do that. So that's just a small thing but those small things really add up. And we're working on more of them. I love that. I love that. And Taylor, the very same question. So I touched on this a little bit earlier about intersectionality and I think this is something that it has to be intentionally done. And I think when you look at just everything that 2020 is throwing at us, we've got massive social change happening, particularly here in the US. Anthony talked about some of the Black Lives Matter stuff that's happening in police brutality. Trans individuals, particularly trans people color continue to be marginalized and killed at alarming rates. It's really hard to not see how all of those things intersect with each other. We're all dealing with 2020 and what it's throwing at us in different ways. And there's so much that we can share with dealing with those experiences. And to me, that is really what our TMRGs are about. And when you look at GitLab being a global company across time zones, across different identities, like we have to be able to figure out how to have better conversations about those intersectionalities. I mean, even now, like we've got some employees who can't breathe because their state is literally on fire. And those are things that we've gotta help each other with and see each other through. And so for me, like that is really what I'm trying to help change at GitLab is really to help have more of those forced intersection conversations because I think they're so important. Thank you for that, Taylor. Those things are important. And the things that this intersectionality and all of it overlapping and overlaying to next is it really resonates and changes how it happens. Anthony, the very thin question for you. Yeah, so I would say, I mean, building on Jackie's point, if we want to continue the good work that we sort of started and are doing, but I feel like the next step is really about seeing more diversity in sort of senior leadership roles. I think we have great talent in the company from diverse backgrounds of finding sort of paths to sort of identify those individuals and open up opportunities that maybe otherwise wouldn't necessarily be accessible. But at the same time, it's really important because if we're talking about looking at GitLab from the outside in, if I'm a potential applicant and I go to the team page and I look at and I see, oh, people that are in senior leadership either look like me or similar to me, then it gives that impression that diversity is, I guess, valued across all levels of the company. And that's something that, just taking sort of looking at the wider landscape of companies today is very unique. And given GitLab's intentionality, all the good things we've spoken about, there's no reason why GitLab can't move in this direction. So if this is something that we can do, I think it will just add sort of more amazingness to what we do as a company. Thank you, Antony, for that. I know that we are right here at time. We do have one question in the doc. We can answer it via the Google doc. It speaks to a lot of what we've said. I can just say the question really quickly, which is, can you give an example of your experiences at GitLab where your identity was not celebrated and how you help address that? So please know that we will get that question answered in via the Google doc. And this has been a wonderful session that hopefully you've had an opportunity to see what the life is like, how our team RG's work, how our members are delighted to feel like they wanna participate and how we all have been along. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks.