 Okay. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the TMRG panel. My name is Anthony. I am based in London, working the sales team at GitLab, and I'll be moderating this conversation really soon. So why don't we start with some introductions? We can start off just introducing the panel. Natalia, would you like to go first? Sure. My name is Natalia, and I live in Kyiv, Ukraine, and I work as a staff front and engineer for Create Knowledge Team at GitLab. Liam? So I'm Liam. I've been here for one year and nine months. Majority of the time I've been in the recruiting team, but recently transitioned over to a new role within the people group based in Sydney. Very nice. Sophia? I am software engineer and test currently working for the monitor stage. I'm based in Sydney. And I am based in Vilnius, Lithuania. Sophia? Vilnius. Peter? Oh, I don't think we can hear you, Peter, and not quite. We'll let Peter sort of get his mark and we'll get combat for an introduction there. Why don't we kick off with the first question? So I guess, yeah, it's sort of given an overview. So how was your experience at GitLab been different than your experience at other companies? And I guess we can kick off with Sophia with that one. Hi, Sophia. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. I think there was just a lot of echo in maybe different tabs somewhere. No worries. So how was your experience at GitLab been different than your experience at other companies? I believe that GitLab has a way of living up to the values, which I have not had the ability to see in my professional experience so far, in the sense that GitLab truly lives up to it. It's a truly open and transparent company. Management does also uphold its values. And the fact that our very clear communication guidelines creates a very safe and open collaboration environment between our colleagues. Love it. And the same for you, Natalia, from your perspective, how is it different from your previous company? So the things that were different here that impressed me the most was flexibility and transparency. By flexibility, I mean how flexible we are in terms of working hours, working days, vacations, parental leave. I'm a working mom and for me it's essential to plan my day in a way I can spend time with my kid, and which might be totally inappropriate if we had more rigid business hours, right? I'm also a conference speaker and I love that Freedom GitLab gives me to take a day off when I need to schedule my talks. I never had this benefit before in any previous company. Speaking about transparency, this feature is truly impressive not only for me, but for anyone who asks me about my work. What processes do you have? What benefits do we offer? What is the compensation level? I can say, oh, it's on our handbook. And I want to add this value in our documentation first approach. Truly inspire people and companies to follow our values even outside GitLab. Yeah, I love that. I'm definitely really aligning with the values of the company, those examples there. And Liam and then Pete, yeah, Liam, we could create to hear from your perspective as well. Sure, I think echoing what Sophia said, I think we're a values driven organization. And a lot of other companies that I've worked in, it's been very much about appearance of values and externally facing. In GitLab, it's very much an internal mantra that we have to follow through on our values. And you see it every day at work. So we help others realize values and conversations in MRs and issues. And we have people not afraid to speak up on that as well. But I also think that we do remote working correctly. I've worked remotely in the past, but I've never felt a real sense of belonging as part of a bigger business. So I really do feel as much of the company as anybody else regardless of my location. Nothing that's been really important. Yeah, absolutely. I definitely agree that GitLab is like a pioneer in remote working for sure, leading the best practice on that. And I guess for Pete, same question to you. So how's your experience at GitLab in different than experience at other companies? Sure, just double checking that you can hear me now. Yeah, loud and clear. Great, so I just do an introduction as well. So I'm Peter Quinn based in Sydney, Australia, and I'm responsible for field marketing in the APJ region. So the biggest difference for me is definitely our company culture, which may sound odd to people because we don't physically sit next to a team member, but there's definitely a strong sense of belonging and a supportive company environment. We might not have any offices and we might be alone when we're working, but we're all alone together. We all had a day one, so we all know how it feels. Also, it's been mentioned a few times now, but our company values our building blocks. We all live there. We all know that every decision that is made within GitLab is based on a values first approach. And as an example of that, transparency is one of our core values. I had someone today send me a message on LinkedIn because I had found one of my field marketing issues just online. And he sent me a message and said, hey, just checking, is this meant to be public? And my response was, yeah, GitLab is a transparent company and everything we do is public by default. Love that. That's powerful. The shock or the surprise for people outside GitLab is so, yeah, sort of not normal. So that's powerful. Love that example. So I guess moving on to the next topic. What sort of ways do you feel that GitLab has made you feel accepted and supported at the company? Natalia, maybe you can kick yourself. Sure. It's just amazing how company cares about our mental health. It's not just words like we are caring. We have mindfulness calls, for example. And when I got the first symptoms of burnout, and it's a big deal in our industry, right? I felt safe to share this with my manager. I was strongly recommended to take time off to recover. And I would also like to mention our family and friends days when every employee in the company takes a day off to spend time with your beloved ones. This is especially valuable right now when we have a lockdown. Yeah. I love that. I love that. And so what would you say, I guess, moving on to Sophia, if you could chime in on that as well. Sure. I also believe that the fact that we are able to work remotely and truly asynchronous enabled me to be... I'm originally from another country. So I'm originally from Portugal, living in Lithuania, where my partner is from. It allows me to actually learn the culture here and being able to go back and see my family as often as possible. And the fact that this is possible to integrate with my work just makes me bring my best self to GitLab every day and truly appreciate the opportunity to be able to reconcile both worlds. Yeah. And that's a big factor, I guess, on people choosing where to work as well and having to make that decision either or. So having that freedom is powerful. Liam, if you finish off a view on that one. Yeah. 100% agree with everything that's been said about myself in Sydney. But I also think that the ability to have really kind of conversations and feel heard and that actions are put in place to remove some of those blockers and stresses that you potentially have at work. And I've had a few managers here at GitLab and I always really feel the servant leadership side and I really feel that is well established here. And I feel that managers truly have a sort of empathetic ear and provide layers of support when needed and when necessary as well. And I haven't had that in previous organizations. Yeah. Yeah, definitely the E-group and leadership management are very accountable for trying to live up to the values. And I guess on that same, you know, how does having a TMRG group sort of help you feel connected at GitLab? What role does that play in terms of your experience at the company? Sofia, maybe you can start. I think that also living in a country right now where the laws for LGBTQ plus are not so advanced, for example, for same-sex marriage or even having a civil partnership. The fact that the environment is not probably the best one for me to thrive in and to live out in the open. This does not happen in GitLab, right? So the fact that it's a company that highly respects the diversity is making me feel accepted and belonged and therefore bringing myself to work. Yeah, definitely. There's loads of different groups that people can get involved in. Liam, I know you're quite involved in groups. What's your perspective on this? Yeah, for me, it just provides a place at work that allows me to represent myself and have other people who have similar or the same lived experience that I have to act as a sounding board of things that I'm experiencing both externally and internally. And it's also a place to be heard and develop actions and to provide some equity for those who are part of the group, again, externally and internally. Some people, as Sofia mentioned, may not be able to live this out in their personal lives, but there is definitely a place for everyone at GitLab. For me, it's been really, really, truly beneficial. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It's actually encouraged. And yeah, I completely agree with you. It provides a better experience, a better environment for working. Pete, how about you? So for me, the resource groups are a platform that allows us to voice our concerns and be heard, but it also allows us to listen to other teammates or team members and what they're experiencing around the world. To me, it's a real privilege to have team members share their experiences, share their stories with me in a safe environment. And together, that's how we build trust and build a connection between team members. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I guess maybe coming up towards the end and wrapping up, how does the TMRG specifically work at GitLab? What kind of things are actually helping you feel like you belong at GitLab? Sophia? We have actually two channels, one public channel and one private channel in Slack, where we can voice more sensitive issues. And this enables us to really have private sharing. And since the team is so diverse and so all over the world, there are different contexts about LGBTQ issues around the world. And the fact that we can discuss them with our own experience and context is very valuable. Yeah. And Liam, would you second that? What are your thoughts? 100%. I think it's allowed me to grow even more conscious of the differences, even when you're a part of a community. So sometimes you need to be an ally, even in a group that you've identified with. And it's been able to help me gain new allies and new relations with people who probably I would never have had if I didn't work at GitLab as well and have the different contexts globally for different matters and different things. So it's really allowed me to have that lens to the wider communities that I'm a part of. Yeah. Pete, sort of finishing off with you on that. Do you have anything in addition to kind of comment on sort of specifically how the TMRG group or groups that you may be a part of help you feel like you connected at GitLab? Yeah. So often I'm on team member resource group calls where I find myself not contributing to the conversation because of my lack of knowledge or experience on the matter. One could easily feel that they don't belong in that situation. But in fact, it makes me feel even a stronger sense of belonging because I'm there, I'm listening, I'm learning, and I'm able to take away that knowledge and share it with the community that I'm in or the region in which I live and to spread the word and communicate those messages out. So there is still that belonging factor to it. Yeah. That's true. And sometimes it is. Like you said, it's just about joining the call or joining just to listen and learn. And that's also given the opportunity and transparency being able to do that is a unique as well. Working here. I guess finally, sort of, you know, what, you know, obviously we've got some really positive things. What areas would you say there's still room for improvement at GitLab when talking about sort of, yeah, TMRB and diversity? Natalia, let's start with you. Yeah. I would definitely like to see more diversity in staff plus roles in engineering and to give a quick background for those who are outside GitLab. If you're an engineer at GitLab, you have two different paths in terms of your career growing. You can go to management, which is more of a classical way becoming a manager, director, and so on. But you also have an individual contributor path where after senior we have staffs, then we have distinguished and engineering fellows. And while we have certain goals for leadership in terms of diversity, we still don't have these goals in the senior engineering individual contributor path and it would be really nice to see some initiatives in this area. Yeah. And Sofia, what are your thoughts on that with Paris for improvement? I think GitLab is on a very good path because the fact that actually there is time allocated to do diversity inclusion and belonging initiatives, it's very important that this is being prioritized by the company. Although I think that it's also important to consider the intersectionality of these groups and where we can actually join and speak stronger instead of perhaps dividing certain groups. So perhaps having a conversation is necessary between the groups more often. Yeah. And sort of finishing off here with Liam, what are your thoughts on improvement? For sure. I think representation is key and I think being more purposeful on the highs that we make, particularly inside leadership. I think often companies get bogged down in big names and previous experience at big companies and big organizations where historically and systematically underrepresented groups haven't had the opportunity to work at those big organizations, particularly inside leadership. So if we don't help break that glass ceiling and provide those opportunities, we may become part of the issue. So having more conversations around how we can attract more people from underrepresented groups into leadership positions particularly I think would be a great next step. Yeah. There seems to be a theme, I guess, across all the sort of thoughts around sort of leadership and being more, I guess, intentional in sort of management and leadership position. So interesting. We have a few minutes left just before the end. I don't see any questions in the Google Docs. I'm wondering if Pete, if you had any thoughts on that particular area as well, just I guess putting you on the spot, any areas that you think that we could improve on that? I agree with Liam. I think leadership definitely plays a big role in how we kind of improve or amplify people in the business to take on those leadership type positions and I guess share the diversity, inclusion, belonging mantra across the leadership level, at the leadership level. Cool. Thank you for sharing that. So I guess let me just have a look. I don't see any questions here. Are there any sort of, given the last sort of three or four minutes, any final comments any of you would like to make or anything that comes to mind in addition to the comments you've shared so far? Sure. I'm happy to just mention that we have our TMRGs, but they're not full and final. So if you do join GitLab and you don't see yourself represented in one of the TMRGs that are already here, you have the ability to create a new one and get support and guidance on that. So don't think that just because it isn't already created you're not welcome and you're not represented here. I'm 100% more than happy to start those groups off. Perfect. I love that. I think that's a great way to end. So yeah, thank you very much everyone. It was great to hear your thoughts and have this conversation and hopefully it's helped people who attended today. Have a good day. Thanks everyone. Bye-bye.