[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":790},["ShallowReactive",2],{"/en-us/blog/moving-from-ops-to-infrastructure":3,"navigation-en-us":33,"banner-en-us":433,"footer-en-us":443,"blog-post-authors-en-us-Pablo Carranza":685,"blog-related-posts-en-us-moving-from-ops-to-infrastructure":699,"assessment-promotions-en-us":740,"next-steps-en-us":780},{"id":4,"title":5,"authorSlugs":6,"body":8,"categorySlug":9,"config":10,"content":14,"description":8,"extension":22,"isFeatured":12,"meta":23,"navigation":24,"path":25,"publishedDate":20,"seo":26,"stem":30,"tagSlugs":31,"__hash__":32},"blogPosts/en-us/blog/moving-from-ops-to-infrastructure.yml","Moving From Ops To Infrastructure",[7],"pablo-carranza",null,"culture",{"slug":11,"featured":12,"template":13},"moving-from-ops-to-infrastructure",false,"BlogPost",{"title":15,"description":16,"authors":17,"heroImage":19,"date":20,"body":21,"category":9},"Why we switched our philosophy from Ops to Infrastructure","Why and how GitLab moved from an Ops mindset to an Infrastructure mindset",[18],"Pablo Carranza","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749683873/Blog/Hero%20Images/infrastructure-cover-image.jpg","2016-08-12","\n\nThere is Ops, Infrastructure, Performance, DevOps etc. The terms and titles go on and they vary based on a\nvariety of industries, companies, and cultures. At GitLab, we focus on the philosophy not the title. In this\npost, I’ll explain why and how our team shifted our philosophy on how we approach GitLab's performance\nfrom an Operations mindset to an Infrastructure mindset.\n\n\u003C!-- more -->\n\n## Operations mindset\n\nWith more and more people using GitLab to host their public and private repos, run CI tests, and deploy to a\nnumber of different environments, we started experiencing noticeable performance and scaling challenges. We’d spot a problem and then race to get it fixed.\nThe team was incredibly reactionary, working to fix this and change that. The reality is that computers will\nbreak and as you scale more things will fail. With this in mind, we could’ve\ntaken the “Mongolian hoard approach” and thrown more people at the problem. However, that would have been\nanother knee-jerk reaction and we could already see that the reactive way of doing things would never scale.\nSo, we had to change. Our goal was to stop running behind the issues and start anticipating challenges in\norder to stay steps ahead of them.\n\n## The transition\n\nLike most things, change is a process. Here are the steps we took:\n\n* **Focus on infrastructure**: We shifted the team to drop the operations view that segregates systems engineering and instead focus on building infrastructure from a development perspective. Our goal was to get away from a world where developers code features and then system engineers deploy it and provision machines. We achieve better results when everyone has to be included in this process, either by building the product adding features, or by building the infrastructure and driving how the product uses the infrastructure to grow.\n* **Spot patterns**: We built graphs to spot patterns. Fortunately, human brains are very good at pattern matching. It's just the way our brain works. Of course, just seeing the pattern isn’t enough. We’d spot the pattern and then work to match it to what we already knew were signs of good performance levels. The only way to be able to spot patterns is to commit to time based metrics that you will collect and then correlate.\n* **Mind the gap**: When we spotted an unexpected or strange behavior we moved closer to the problem to understand where it was coming from, build a hypothesis, and then challenge our assumptions. We don't take feelings as data, if someone on the team feels that something is slow, we still need to get a number showing how slow, in a way that we can measure and reproduce the experiment.\n* **Align resources effectively**: With data on what’s not working and how is this affecting your system, you can focus on the right problem and allocate the right level of people and resources to find a solution.\n* **Seek to automate**: If you find yourself performing a manual task, you should do it once, twice, then many. By that, I mean you do the manual work once, a second time, and then you if you need to perform it a third time you need to automate it somehow. This is the laziness Larry Wall talks about in [the three virtues of a great programmer](http://threevirtues.com/). The goal is to stop doing the boring work a machine is so good at.\n* **Rinse and repeat**: Take your graphs, make your assumptions, challenge them with an experiment, get your results, and start again following an iterative process, forever.\n\n## Cultural shift\n\nMaking this transition really forced the company to tear down the wall between development and production and\ncollectively focus on building a better product. It’s been very important\nfor our infrastructure team to have a \"developer mindset\". We need to find simple solutions to complex problems\nand constantly be working to code ourselves out of a job.\nOur team works to scale our software and our infrastructure by automating solutions.\nThere will always be new challenges for the team work on next.\nFor example, one of the problems that we faced recently was that we were going to run out\nof storage in a single appliance and we needed to fix this before we ran out, a show stopper kind of problem.\nOur process to get ahead of this was:\n\n1. Identify the problem: we are running out of storage space and performance. This opens the questions: how much time left we have?\n1. Add monitoring to understand what the context and environment is: monitor iostat, monitor filesystem growth, plan how much time we have left.\n1. Build a hypothesis and an experiment to challenge our assumptions: by using [multiple shards](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/infrastructure/issues/139) we can buy time increasing complexity to move to a better solution.\n1. Run the experiment by building a small piece of infrastructure: [attach a new filesystem shard to the nodes](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/infrastructure/issues/192), and set up new projects to be created there.\n1. Learn, and move to the next iteration of solving this long running issue, leaving better tooling behind to make a better decision next time.\n\nIn this iteration we realized that our [git ssh access timings where not to blame to NFS at all](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/infrastructure/issues/59#note_13488035), it was all within ssh.\nWe also learned that most of our traffic comes from new projects that are being imported into GitLab.com so most of the write load moved to the new shard. This is good information that we can use to plan our infrastructure using our resources better.\n\n## The story of a recent win: improve our ssh git access time\n\n1. Assumption: ssh is slow because we are doing a linear search in the `authorized_keys` file. Data to back up this assumption is the current graphs for io metrics in the main NFS server.\n1. Experiment: adding an [authorized keys](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/operations/issues/99) api command and using it for openssh authorization will give better performance.\n1. Result: stabilized API access because of less filesystem access, but API is still slow: ![Stabilized API Access](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/moving-from-ops-to-infrastructure/grape-internal-allowed-timings.png){: .shadow}\n1. Assumption: web in general (API included) is slow because the worker nodes are [being restarted too often](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/operations/issues/276)\n1. Experiment: [adding queueing times for http requests](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/operations/issues/264) will give us understanding of how much time is a request waiting to be served.\n1. Result: we had way better information and realized that our http requests where queueing for 1 second in the p99 case.\n1. Assumption: by preventing unicorn processes from being killed too often we will avoid enqueuing requests for too long.\n1. Experiment: increasing _out of memory_ killer will keep workers running for longer.\n1. Result: http queueing time dropped to virtually zero and transaction timings were also [massively impacted](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/operations/issues/276#note_12353835): ![HTTP Queueing time](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/moving-from-ops-to-infrastructure/http-queue-timings.png){: .shadow}\n1. New data: from the wider picture perspective, our ssh access is still irregular and quite slow intermittently: ![intermittent slow ssh access](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/moving-from-ops-to-infrastructure/slow-ssh-access.png){: .shadow}\n1. Assumption: after deeper investigation, [dbus is queueing connections](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/infrastructure/issues/290#note_13536786) because of an arbitrary max sockets limit and bad file descriptor handling.\n1. Experiment: patching dbus in a PPA package and [bouncing all the workers](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/infrastructure/issues/290#note_13607928) will remove the dbus queuing time.\n1. Result: git ssh access [stabilized at ~2 seconds for push, ~5 seconds for pull](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/infrastructure/issues/290#note_13613187): ![stable ssh access times](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/moving-from-ops-to-infrastructure/stable-ssh-access.png){: .shadow}\n1. Ongoing further actions: investigate how we can reduce those ssh access timings, and [contribute back to the community](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/infrastructure/issues/290#note_13613213) so everyone can benefit from this.\n\nOther things happened in the mean time, we added a [public black box monitoring system](http://dashboards.gitlab.com/) to make our performance improvement efforts public. We used this monitoring to start with simple things, and over time we added more and more metrics to get better insight.\nFor example, monitoring our ssh access times was as easy as writing a [simple script](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-monitor) and adding a cronjob to probe the access every minute. Only with this _boring solution_ we managed to understand how was GitLab.com behaving, and we managed to see how it was evolving in our efforts to build a better system.\n\nThere were also some assumptions that proved wrong, but led to better understanding, for example: we assumed that our ssh access was being slow because of the TCP load balancing we do before reaching a worker node, this turned not to be the case when we started monitoring each node individually for better understanding.\nThis kind of experiments are extremely useful because they will invalidate the assumption and make you look somewhere else - failing is an extremely important part of the process.\n\n## Our toolbox\n\nHere is a list of the tools we use right now:\n\n- [Chef](https://www.chef.io/chef/) → [infrastructure as code](https://www.thoughtworks.com/es/insights/blog/infrastructure-code-reason-smile)\n- [Prometheus](https://github.com/prometheus) → It will allow you to gather metrics in a time series providing good exploration tools. Then graph those metrics in grafana building dashboards.\n- [Blackbox exporter](https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter) → It will allow you to see what your customers are seeing from the outside, if it's slow, you will [see how slow](http://dashboards.gitlab.com/dashboard/db/gitlab-status)\n- [Influxdb](https://influxdata.com/) → Time series database, supported by GitLab for pushing white box performance metrics.\n- [Grafana](http://grafana.org/) → Graphing tool, we use it with both Influxdb and Prometheus to build graph dashobards that allow you to see how the application is behaving through time.\n- [ELK stack](https://www.elastic.co/webinars/introduction-elk-stack) (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) → Log processing and analyzing system. Logs are usually the first source of information that can and should be used. There's no lower hanging fruit than writing logs that add value, then parsing these logs to see how is the system behaving. Something as simple as requests per minute will tell you how much the system is being used, add errors per minute to the same graph and you will know if your last deploy is broken and should be reverted.\n- [Sentry](https://getsentry.com/welcome/) → Real time error tracking system.\n","yml",{},true,"/en-us/blog/moving-from-ops-to-infrastructure",{"title":15,"description":16,"ogTitle":15,"ogDescription":16,"noIndex":12,"ogImage":19,"ogUrl":27,"ogSiteName":28,"ogType":29,"canonicalUrls":27},"https://about.gitlab.com/blog/moving-from-ops-to-infrastructure","https://about.gitlab.com","article","en-us/blog/moving-from-ops-to-infrastructure",[],"vAFt1BZ7KOgMwbO4VNK0PKL_1MpftCwNk4PkJJM6RB0",{"data":34},{"logo":35,"freeTrial":40,"sales":45,"login":50,"items":55,"search":363,"minimal":394,"duo":413,"pricingDeployment":423},{"config":36},{"href":37,"dataGaName":38,"dataGaLocation":39},"/","gitlab logo","header",{"text":41,"config":42},"Get free trial",{"href":43,"dataGaName":44,"dataGaLocation":39},"https://gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new?glm_source=about.gitlab.com&glm_content=default-saas-trial/","free trial",{"text":46,"config":47},"Talk to sales",{"href":48,"dataGaName":49,"dataGaLocation":39},"/sales/","sales",{"text":51,"config":52},"Sign in",{"href":53,"dataGaName":54,"dataGaLocation":39},"https://gitlab.com/users/sign_in/","sign in",[56,83,178,183,284,344],{"text":57,"config":58,"cards":60},"Platform",{"dataNavLevelOne":59},"platform",[61,67,75],{"title":57,"description":62,"link":63},"The intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps",{"text":64,"config":65},"Explore our Platform",{"href":66,"dataGaName":59,"dataGaLocation":39},"/platform/",{"title":68,"description":69,"link":70},"GitLab Duo Agent Platform","Agentic AI for the entire software lifecycle",{"text":71,"config":72},"Meet GitLab Duo",{"href":73,"dataGaName":74,"dataGaLocation":39},"/gitlab-duo-agent-platform/","gitlab duo agent platform",{"title":76,"description":77,"link":78},"Why GitLab","See the top reasons enterprises choose GitLab",{"text":79,"config":80},"Learn more",{"href":81,"dataGaName":82,"dataGaLocation":39},"/why-gitlab/","why gitlab",{"text":84,"left":24,"config":85,"link":87,"lists":91,"footer":160},"Product",{"dataNavLevelOne":86},"solutions",{"text":88,"config":89},"View all Solutions",{"href":90,"dataGaName":86,"dataGaLocation":39},"/solutions/",[92,116,139],{"title":93,"description":94,"link":95,"items":100},"Automation","CI/CD and automation to accelerate deployment",{"config":96},{"icon":97,"href":98,"dataGaName":99,"dataGaLocation":39},"AutomatedCodeAlt","/solutions/delivery-automation/","automated software delivery",[101,105,108,112],{"text":102,"config":103},"CI/CD",{"href":104,"dataGaLocation":39,"dataGaName":102},"/solutions/continuous-integration/",{"text":68,"config":106},{"href":73,"dataGaLocation":39,"dataGaName":107},"gitlab duo agent platform - product menu",{"text":109,"config":110},"Source Code Management",{"href":111,"dataGaLocation":39,"dataGaName":109},"/solutions/source-code-management/",{"text":113,"config":114},"Automated Software Delivery",{"href":98,"dataGaLocation":39,"dataGaName":115},"Automated software delivery",{"title":117,"description":118,"link":119,"items":124},"Security","Deliver code faster without compromising security",{"config":120},{"href":121,"dataGaName":122,"dataGaLocation":39,"icon":123},"/solutions/application-security-testing/","security and compliance","ShieldCheckLight",[125,129,134],{"text":126,"config":127},"Application Security Testing",{"href":121,"dataGaName":128,"dataGaLocation":39},"Application security testing",{"text":130,"config":131},"Software Supply Chain Security",{"href":132,"dataGaLocation":39,"dataGaName":133},"/solutions/supply-chain/","Software supply chain security",{"text":135,"config":136},"Software Compliance",{"href":137,"dataGaName":138,"dataGaLocation":39},"/solutions/software-compliance/","software compliance",{"title":140,"link":141,"items":146},"Measurement",{"config":142},{"icon":143,"href":144,"dataGaName":145,"dataGaLocation":39},"DigitalTransformation","/solutions/visibility-measurement/","visibility and measurement",[147,151,155],{"text":148,"config":149},"Visibility & Measurement",{"href":144,"dataGaLocation":39,"dataGaName":150},"Visibility and Measurement",{"text":152,"config":153},"Value Stream Management",{"href":154,"dataGaLocation":39,"dataGaName":152},"/solutions/value-stream-management/",{"text":156,"config":157},"Analytics & Insights",{"href":158,"dataGaLocation":39,"dataGaName":159},"/solutions/analytics-and-insights/","Analytics and insights",{"title":161,"items":162},"GitLab for",[163,168,173],{"text":164,"config":165},"Enterprise",{"href":166,"dataGaLocation":39,"dataGaName":167},"/enterprise/","enterprise",{"text":169,"config":170},"Small Business",{"href":171,"dataGaLocation":39,"dataGaName":172},"/small-business/","small business",{"text":174,"config":175},"Public Sector",{"href":176,"dataGaLocation":39,"dataGaName":177},"/solutions/public-sector/","public sector",{"text":179,"config":180},"Pricing",{"href":181,"dataGaName":182,"dataGaLocation":39,"dataNavLevelOne":182},"/pricing/","pricing",{"text":184,"config":185,"link":187,"lists":191,"feature":271},"Resources",{"dataNavLevelOne":186},"resources",{"text":188,"config":189},"View all resources",{"href":190,"dataGaName":186,"dataGaLocation":39},"/resources/",[192,225,243],{"title":193,"items":194},"Getting started",[195,200,205,210,215,220],{"text":196,"config":197},"Install",{"href":198,"dataGaName":199,"dataGaLocation":39},"/install/","install",{"text":201,"config":202},"Quick start guides",{"href":203,"dataGaName":204,"dataGaLocation":39},"/get-started/","quick setup checklists",{"text":206,"config":207},"Learn",{"href":208,"dataGaLocation":39,"dataGaName":209},"https://university.gitlab.com/","learn",{"text":211,"config":212},"Product documentation",{"href":213,"dataGaName":214,"dataGaLocation":39},"https://docs.gitlab.com/","product documentation",{"text":216,"config":217},"Best practice videos",{"href":218,"dataGaName":219,"dataGaLocation":39},"/getting-started-videos/","best practice videos",{"text":221,"config":222},"Integrations",{"href":223,"dataGaName":224,"dataGaLocation":39},"/integrations/","integrations",{"title":226,"items":227},"Discover",[228,233,238],{"text":229,"config":230},"Customer success stories",{"href":231,"dataGaName":232,"dataGaLocation":39},"/customers/","customer success stories",{"text":234,"config":235},"Blog",{"href":236,"dataGaName":237,"dataGaLocation":39},"/blog/","blog",{"text":239,"config":240},"Remote",{"href":241,"dataGaName":242,"dataGaLocation":39},"https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/all-remote/","remote",{"title":244,"items":245},"Connect",[246,251,256,261,266],{"text":247,"config":248},"GitLab Services",{"href":249,"dataGaName":250,"dataGaLocation":39},"/services/","services",{"text":252,"config":253},"Community",{"href":254,"dataGaName":255,"dataGaLocation":39},"/community/","community",{"text":257,"config":258},"Forum",{"href":259,"dataGaName":260,"dataGaLocation":39},"https://forum.gitlab.com/","forum",{"text":262,"config":263},"Events",{"href":264,"dataGaName":265,"dataGaLocation":39},"/events/","events",{"text":267,"config":268},"Partners",{"href":269,"dataGaName":270,"dataGaLocation":39},"/partners/","partners",{"backgroundColor":272,"textColor":273,"text":274,"image":275,"link":279},"#2f2a6b","#fff","Insights for the future of software development",{"altText":276,"config":277},"the source promo card",{"src":278},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1758208064/dzl0dbift9xdizyelkk4.svg",{"text":280,"config":281},"Read the latest",{"href":282,"dataGaName":283,"dataGaLocation":39},"/the-source/","the source",{"text":285,"config":286,"lists":288},"Company",{"dataNavLevelOne":287},"company",[289],{"items":290},[291,296,302,304,309,314,319,324,329,334,339],{"text":292,"config":293},"About",{"href":294,"dataGaName":295,"dataGaLocation":39},"/company/","about",{"text":297,"config":298,"footerGa":301},"Jobs",{"href":299,"dataGaName":300,"dataGaLocation":39},"/jobs/","jobs",{"dataGaName":300},{"text":262,"config":303},{"href":264,"dataGaName":265,"dataGaLocation":39},{"text":305,"config":306},"Leadership",{"href":307,"dataGaName":308,"dataGaLocation":39},"/company/team/e-group/","leadership",{"text":310,"config":311},"Team",{"href":312,"dataGaName":313,"dataGaLocation":39},"/company/team/","team",{"text":315,"config":316},"Handbook",{"href":317,"dataGaName":318,"dataGaLocation":39},"https://handbook.gitlab.com/","handbook",{"text":320,"config":321},"Investor relations",{"href":322,"dataGaName":323,"dataGaLocation":39},"https://ir.gitlab.com/","investor relations",{"text":325,"config":326},"Trust Center",{"href":327,"dataGaName":328,"dataGaLocation":39},"/security/","trust center",{"text":330,"config":331},"AI Transparency Center",{"href":332,"dataGaName":333,"dataGaLocation":39},"/ai-transparency-center/","ai transparency center",{"text":335,"config":336},"Newsletter",{"href":337,"dataGaName":338,"dataGaLocation":39},"/company/contact/#contact-forms","newsletter",{"text":340,"config":341},"Press",{"href":342,"dataGaName":343,"dataGaLocation":39},"/press/","press",{"text":345,"config":346,"lists":347},"Contact us",{"dataNavLevelOne":287},[348],{"items":349},[350,353,358],{"text":46,"config":351},{"href":48,"dataGaName":352,"dataGaLocation":39},"talk to sales",{"text":354,"config":355},"Support portal",{"href":356,"dataGaName":357,"dataGaLocation":39},"https://support.gitlab.com","support portal",{"text":359,"config":360},"Customer portal",{"href":361,"dataGaName":362,"dataGaLocation":39},"https://customers.gitlab.com/customers/sign_in/","customer portal",{"close":364,"login":365,"suggestions":372},"Close",{"text":366,"link":367},"To search repositories and projects, login to",{"text":368,"config":369},"gitlab.com",{"href":53,"dataGaName":370,"dataGaLocation":371},"search login","search",{"text":373,"default":374},"Suggestions",[375,377,381,383,387,391],{"text":68,"config":376},{"href":73,"dataGaName":68,"dataGaLocation":371},{"text":378,"config":379},"Code Suggestions (AI)",{"href":380,"dataGaName":378,"dataGaLocation":371},"/solutions/code-suggestions/",{"text":102,"config":382},{"href":104,"dataGaName":102,"dataGaLocation":371},{"text":384,"config":385},"GitLab on AWS",{"href":386,"dataGaName":384,"dataGaLocation":371},"/partners/technology-partners/aws/",{"text":388,"config":389},"GitLab on Google Cloud",{"href":390,"dataGaName":388,"dataGaLocation":371},"/partners/technology-partners/google-cloud-platform/",{"text":392,"config":393},"Why GitLab?",{"href":81,"dataGaName":392,"dataGaLocation":371},{"freeTrial":395,"mobileIcon":400,"desktopIcon":405,"secondaryButton":408},{"text":396,"config":397},"Start free trial",{"href":398,"dataGaName":44,"dataGaLocation":399},"https://gitlab.com/-/trials/new/","nav",{"altText":401,"config":402},"Gitlab Icon",{"src":403,"dataGaName":404,"dataGaLocation":399},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1758203874/jypbw1jx72aexsoohd7x.svg","gitlab icon",{"altText":401,"config":406},{"src":407,"dataGaName":404,"dataGaLocation":399},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1758203875/gs4c8p8opsgvflgkswz9.svg",{"text":409,"config":410},"Get Started",{"href":411,"dataGaName":412,"dataGaLocation":399},"https://gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new?glm_source=about.gitlab.com/compare/gitlab-vs-github/","get started",{"freeTrial":414,"mobileIcon":419,"desktopIcon":421},{"text":415,"config":416},"Learn more about GitLab Duo",{"href":417,"dataGaName":418,"dataGaLocation":399},"/gitlab-duo/","gitlab duo",{"altText":401,"config":420},{"src":403,"dataGaName":404,"dataGaLocation":399},{"altText":401,"config":422},{"src":407,"dataGaName":404,"dataGaLocation":399},{"freeTrial":424,"mobileIcon":429,"desktopIcon":431},{"text":425,"config":426},"Back to pricing",{"href":181,"dataGaName":427,"dataGaLocation":399,"icon":428},"back to pricing","GoBack",{"altText":401,"config":430},{"src":403,"dataGaName":404,"dataGaLocation":399},{"altText":401,"config":432},{"src":407,"dataGaName":404,"dataGaLocation":399},{"title":434,"button":435,"config":440},"See how agentic AI transforms software delivery",{"text":436,"config":437},"Watch GitLab Transcend now",{"href":438,"dataGaName":439,"dataGaLocation":39},"/events/transcend/virtual/","transcend event",{"layout":441,"icon":442},"release","AiStar",{"data":444},{"text":445,"source":446,"edit":452,"contribute":457,"config":462,"items":467,"minimal":674},"Git is a trademark of Software Freedom Conservancy and our use of 'GitLab' is under license",{"text":447,"config":448},"View page source",{"href":449,"dataGaName":450,"dataGaLocation":451},"https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/marketing/digital-experience/about-gitlab-com/","page source","footer",{"text":453,"config":454},"Edit this page",{"href":455,"dataGaName":456,"dataGaLocation":451},"https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/marketing/digital-experience/about-gitlab-com/-/blob/main/content/","web ide",{"text":458,"config":459},"Please contribute",{"href":460,"dataGaName":461,"dataGaLocation":451},"https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/marketing/digital-experience/about-gitlab-com/-/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md/","please contribute",{"twitter":463,"facebook":464,"youtube":465,"linkedin":466},"https://twitter.com/gitlab","https://www.facebook.com/gitlab","https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnMGQ8QHMAnVIsI3xJrihhg","https://www.linkedin.com/company/gitlab-com",[468,515,569,613,640],{"title":179,"links":469,"subMenu":484},[470,474,479],{"text":471,"config":472},"View plans",{"href":181,"dataGaName":473,"dataGaLocation":451},"view plans",{"text":475,"config":476},"Why Premium?",{"href":477,"dataGaName":478,"dataGaLocation":451},"/pricing/premium/","why premium",{"text":480,"config":481},"Why Ultimate?",{"href":482,"dataGaName":483,"dataGaLocation":451},"/pricing/ultimate/","why ultimate",[485],{"title":486,"links":487},"Contact Us",[488,491,493,495,500,505,510],{"text":489,"config":490},"Contact sales",{"href":48,"dataGaName":49,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":354,"config":492},{"href":356,"dataGaName":357,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":359,"config":494},{"href":361,"dataGaName":362,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":496,"config":497},"Status",{"href":498,"dataGaName":499,"dataGaLocation":451},"https://status.gitlab.com/","status",{"text":501,"config":502},"Terms of use",{"href":503,"dataGaName":504,"dataGaLocation":451},"/terms/","terms of use",{"text":506,"config":507},"Privacy statement",{"href":508,"dataGaName":509,"dataGaLocation":451},"/privacy/","privacy statement",{"text":511,"config":512},"Cookie preferences",{"dataGaName":513,"dataGaLocation":451,"id":514,"isOneTrustButton":24},"cookie preferences","ot-sdk-btn",{"title":84,"links":516,"subMenu":525},[517,521],{"text":518,"config":519},"DevSecOps platform",{"href":66,"dataGaName":520,"dataGaLocation":451},"devsecops platform",{"text":522,"config":523},"AI-Assisted Development",{"href":417,"dataGaName":524,"dataGaLocation":451},"ai-assisted development",[526],{"title":527,"links":528},"Topics",[529,534,539,544,549,554,559,564],{"text":530,"config":531},"CICD",{"href":532,"dataGaName":533,"dataGaLocation":451},"/topics/ci-cd/","cicd",{"text":535,"config":536},"GitOps",{"href":537,"dataGaName":538,"dataGaLocation":451},"/topics/gitops/","gitops",{"text":540,"config":541},"DevOps",{"href":542,"dataGaName":543,"dataGaLocation":451},"/topics/devops/","devops",{"text":545,"config":546},"Version Control",{"href":547,"dataGaName":548,"dataGaLocation":451},"/topics/version-control/","version control",{"text":550,"config":551},"DevSecOps",{"href":552,"dataGaName":553,"dataGaLocation":451},"/topics/devsecops/","devsecops",{"text":555,"config":556},"Cloud Native",{"href":557,"dataGaName":558,"dataGaLocation":451},"/topics/cloud-native/","cloud native",{"text":560,"config":561},"AI for Coding",{"href":562,"dataGaName":563,"dataGaLocation":451},"/topics/devops/ai-for-coding/","ai for coding",{"text":565,"config":566},"Agentic AI",{"href":567,"dataGaName":568,"dataGaLocation":451},"/topics/agentic-ai/","agentic ai",{"title":570,"links":571},"Solutions",[572,574,576,581,585,588,592,595,597,600,603,608],{"text":126,"config":573},{"href":121,"dataGaName":126,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":115,"config":575},{"href":98,"dataGaName":99,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":577,"config":578},"Agile development",{"href":579,"dataGaName":580,"dataGaLocation":451},"/solutions/agile-delivery/","agile delivery",{"text":582,"config":583},"SCM",{"href":111,"dataGaName":584,"dataGaLocation":451},"source code management",{"text":530,"config":586},{"href":104,"dataGaName":587,"dataGaLocation":451},"continuous integration & delivery",{"text":589,"config":590},"Value stream management",{"href":154,"dataGaName":591,"dataGaLocation":451},"value stream management",{"text":535,"config":593},{"href":594,"dataGaName":538,"dataGaLocation":451},"/solutions/gitops/",{"text":164,"config":596},{"href":166,"dataGaName":167,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":598,"config":599},"Small business",{"href":171,"dataGaName":172,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":601,"config":602},"Public sector",{"href":176,"dataGaName":177,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":604,"config":605},"Education",{"href":606,"dataGaName":607,"dataGaLocation":451},"/solutions/education/","education",{"text":609,"config":610},"Financial services",{"href":611,"dataGaName":612,"dataGaLocation":451},"/solutions/finance/","financial services",{"title":184,"links":614},[615,617,619,621,624,626,628,630,632,634,636,638],{"text":196,"config":616},{"href":198,"dataGaName":199,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":201,"config":618},{"href":203,"dataGaName":204,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":206,"config":620},{"href":208,"dataGaName":209,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":211,"config":622},{"href":213,"dataGaName":623,"dataGaLocation":451},"docs",{"text":234,"config":625},{"href":236,"dataGaName":237,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":229,"config":627},{"href":231,"dataGaName":232,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":239,"config":629},{"href":241,"dataGaName":242,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":247,"config":631},{"href":249,"dataGaName":250,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":252,"config":633},{"href":254,"dataGaName":255,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":257,"config":635},{"href":259,"dataGaName":260,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":262,"config":637},{"href":264,"dataGaName":265,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":267,"config":639},{"href":269,"dataGaName":270,"dataGaLocation":451},{"title":285,"links":641},[642,644,646,648,650,652,654,658,663,665,667,669],{"text":292,"config":643},{"href":294,"dataGaName":287,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":297,"config":645},{"href":299,"dataGaName":300,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":305,"config":647},{"href":307,"dataGaName":308,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":310,"config":649},{"href":312,"dataGaName":313,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":315,"config":651},{"href":317,"dataGaName":318,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":320,"config":653},{"href":322,"dataGaName":323,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":655,"config":656},"Sustainability",{"href":657,"dataGaName":655,"dataGaLocation":451},"/sustainability/",{"text":659,"config":660},"Diversity, inclusion and belonging (DIB)",{"href":661,"dataGaName":662,"dataGaLocation":451},"/diversity-inclusion-belonging/","Diversity, inclusion and belonging",{"text":325,"config":664},{"href":327,"dataGaName":328,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":335,"config":666},{"href":337,"dataGaName":338,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":340,"config":668},{"href":342,"dataGaName":343,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":670,"config":671},"Modern Slavery Transparency Statement",{"href":672,"dataGaName":673,"dataGaLocation":451},"https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/legal/modern-slavery-act-transparency-statement/","modern slavery transparency statement",{"items":675},[676,679,682],{"text":677,"config":678},"Terms",{"href":503,"dataGaName":504,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":680,"config":681},"Cookies",{"dataGaName":513,"dataGaLocation":451,"id":514,"isOneTrustButton":24},{"text":683,"config":684},"Privacy",{"href":508,"dataGaName":509,"dataGaLocation":451},[686],{"id":687,"title":18,"body":8,"config":688,"content":690,"description":8,"extension":22,"meta":694,"navigation":24,"path":695,"seo":696,"stem":697,"__hash__":698},"blogAuthors/en-us/blog/authors/pablo-carranza.yml",{"template":689},"BlogAuthor",{"name":18,"config":691},{"headshot":692,"ctfId":693},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749659488/Blog/Author%20Headshots/gitlab-logo-extra-whitespace.png","Pablo-Carranza",{},"/en-us/blog/authors/pablo-carranza",{},"en-us/blog/authors/pablo-carranza","CSXEB1tj-U7HH0__znUYl6QtFcPuLGeiJIkP6GENedA",[700,713,727],{"content":701,"config":711},{"title":702,"description":703,"authors":704,"heroImage":706,"date":707,"body":708,"category":9,"tags":709},"Developer Relations at GitLab: What we've learned since our start","DevRel is key to success for many tech companies. Find out how GitLab's DevRel program has evolved to stay aligned with the industry and our customers.",[705],"John Coghlan","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749672008/Blog/Hero%20Images/AdobeStock_204527293.jpg","2024-03-13","Earlier this year, a tweet (are they still called that?) by [Kelsey Hightower](https://twitter.com/kelseyhightower) sparked discussion on social media and internally at GitLab.\n\n![Kelsey Hightower tweet](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749678041/Blog/Content%20Images/Screenshot_2024-03-08_at_8.19.09_AM.png)\n\nAt first, Kelsey's response might seem a bit flippant, but there’s an underlying truth to it: Developer Relations (short: DevRel) – and other business functions – must meet the needs of the business and your customers. However, what your stakeholders and customers need will be different in the future. Therefore, to be successful, you have to iterate to stay aligned with them.\n\nReflecting back on my five years working in Developer Relations (formerly known as Community Relations) at GitLab, our team has continuously evolved to stay aligned with the needs of our customers, our community, and the business. GitLab CEO and founder Sid Sijbrandij explains how North Star Metrics evolve in his blog post on goal-setting for startups: [Artificially constraining your company to one goal creates velocity and creativity](https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-06-05-artificially-constrain-one-goal-to-create-creativity-velocity/). He details the shift from attention to active users to revenue to profit. The evolution of DevRel at GitLab in many ways maps to that same journey.\n\n![What is DevRel - image 2](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749678041/Blog/Content%20Images/image1.png)\n\n## Early DevRel at GitLab\n\nWhen I joined GitLab in 2018, our team was largely made up of Community Advocates, an Evangelist Program Manager (me), a Code Contributor program manager, and a director. The Community Advocates were tasked with monitoring and engaging with GitLab community members across various online channels but primarily [Hacker News](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/developer-relations/developer-evangelism/hacker-news/) and Twitter. Answering questions and creating issues based on comments served to increase awareness and attention for GitLab. In addition, users learned that their questions would be answered and feedback was being heard and, frequently, acted on.\n\nAt the same time, the Code Contributor program and Evangelist program were driving growth and interest in GitLab by helping our contributors navigate the contribution process, organizing events and meetups to connect our community, and deepening our relationship with our community champions, also known as [GitLab Heroes](https://contributors.gitlab.com/docs/previous-heroes).\n\nFor companies in early stages, this is how DevRel often looks. The key tactics in this phase are:\n- use low-cost tools (blogs and social media) to drive attention\n- capitalize on people’s interest to deepen relationships and create advocates and champions\n- smooth the pathways to contribute or discover content\n\n> **Tip:** Direct engagement with your community through social media and online forums drives awareness, builds trust, and increases the quality and volume of feedback on your product.\n\n## Expanding DevRel's reach\n\nNext, we ramped up programs like GitLab for Open Source and GitLab for Education. These programs helped attract to our platform key open source projects and many large academic institutions, both with large numbers of engaged users. More users meant more feedback to help us improve the product and more contributors.\n\nAs attention grew and the breadth and depth of our platform increased, we needed to better enable our customers to leverage the capabilities of GitLab’s DevSecOps Platform. This stage roughly maps to the revenue North Star Metric. To drive greater awareness and adoption, the Community Relations team underwent a critical change.\n\n> **Tip:** When looking to grow your active users, engage with partners who can bring their community to your product or platform. This strategy is often overlooked but can be a big boost to awareness and growth, setting you up for success.\n\n## Deepening the DevRel bench\n\nAs our next move, we formed a team of technical experts, known as Developer Evangelists. This team engaged in more traditional DevRel practices, those that might come to mind when asking yourself “What is DevRel?”. Internally, we referred to this team’s role as the three Cs:\n- Content creation - creating blog posts, technical talks, demos, and other content to enable our customers\n- Community engagement - engaging online and at events with our customers and community\n- Consulting - serving as internal advocates for and experts on the wider GitLab community\n\nHaving technical experts who could connect directly with customers and escalate that feedback internally helped improve the feedback loop between users and product teams. This team also deeply understood GitLab users, which improved the company's ability to enable our customers and community through content.\n\n> **Tip:** Early in your company journey, executives, product managers, and engineers play a vital role in engaging with community. As the number of users grows, you’ll need technical experts on your team who can directly engage with users and ensure customer feedback reaches key stakeholders (executives and product owners).\n\n## Continuously evolving DevRel at GitLab\n\nOver the past year, the team has evolved again.\n\n- A new vice president joined our team and has helped us become more strategic and better aligned cross-functionally.\n\n- A Contributor Success team was established to better engage and align with our customers around contributions to GitLab. Evolving from a one-person function to a full-fledged team of engineers with deep experience in open source (including multiple past contributors to GitLab), this team continuously improves the contribution experience and engages directly with customers who wish to contribute.\n\n- We updated our team name and many of our team members’ job titles to align with industry standards.\n\n- And we’ve all ramped up quite a bit on AI, perhaps you’ve heard of [GitLab Duo](https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-duo/)?\n\nAs GitLab continues to mature as a public company, the team will continue to evolve. Through these changes, we will stay focused on increasing the efficiency and impact of our efforts for our customers, our product, and our team.\n\n## Gaining - and maintaining - executive buy-in\n\nExecutive buy-in is essential for DevRel. Look at the companies with the largest, most engaged communities and you will find that those companies also have the most active, engaged, and often highly respected founders and CEOs. This is certainly true with GitLab.\n\nGitLab’s engagement with our community began before we were even a company when Dmitriy Zaporozhets (DZ) started the open source GitLab project with [this commit](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss/commit/9ba1224867665844b117fa037e1465bb706b3685). The engagement continued when Sid [launched GitLab on Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4428278).\n\nThe importance of community in GitLab’s success cannot be overstated, and while we’ve grown to heights that few companies reach, contributions from our customers and community remain central in [our strategy](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/strategy/#dual-flywheels). Because of this, team members, from the highest levels of GitLab and throughout our organization, remain in active communication with our customers via issues and social forums, working hard at all times to help them succeed. Transparency is key here. Documenting our DevRel strategies in the [public GitLab handbook](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/developer-relations/) enables everyone to contribute.\n\n> **Tip:** Executive support is critical when building a community.\n\n## So what is DevRel?\n\nI want to go back to the initial question that sparked this blog: What is DevRel?\n\nI’ll leave you with a quote from Emilio Salvador, vice president of Developer Relations at GitLab, which was recently merged to [our handbook page](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/developer-relations):\n\n\u003Ci>\"Developer Relations (short: DevRel) operates at the intersection of technology, community, and advocacy, serving as the voice and ears of GitLab in the wider tech world. Their core mission revolves around nurturing and sustaining a vibrant, engaged community of developers, contributors, and users. This involves a multifaceted approach that includes creating educational content, organizing events and workshops, developing programs, and providing platforms for knowledge exchange and collaboration. The team not only focuses on promoting GitLab’s features and capabilities but also actively listens to and incorporates feedback from the community to inform product development and improvements.\"\u003C/i>\n\nThat’s what it is today, but if the history of DevRel at GitLab is any indication, I expect that we’ll continue to iterate going forward.\n\n> [Join our Discord community](https://discord.gg/gitlab) to continue the conversation.\n",[540,550,710],"inside GitLab",{"slug":712,"featured":24,"template":13},"developer-relations-at-gitlab-what-weve-learned-since-our-start",{"content":714,"config":725},{"title":715,"description":716,"authors":717,"heroImage":719,"date":720,"body":721,"category":9,"tags":722},"Visualizing 11 years of GitLab contributions","Check out this animated video, which beautifully visualizes every contribution since our start.",[718],"Darwin Sanoy","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749682555/Blog/Hero%20Images/gitlabeveryonecontributesdna.png","2022-12-19","\n\nGitLab’s mission is to make it so that **[everyone can contribute](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/mission/#mission)**. While I have been experiencing this mission for three years, I wondered if there was a way to visualize the effect of having everyone contribute over GitLab's history. It turns out there is. An open source project known as [Gource](https://gource.io/) can create an animated visualization of the commit history of a repository. I ran it against the GitLab repository and it visualizes 11 years of busy developers contributing over 300,000 commits to GitLab - covered in just under 10 minutes of video. Each node in the visualization is a file and the count of various file types is shown on the left.\n\nA big thank you to absolutely everyone who has made contributions to GitLab over the years. Hopefully this visualization helps you have a greater sense of this community.\n\nGitLab has recently published the management principles that help enable the \"everyone can contribute\" mission within GitLab. This new people management framework is called [TeamOps](/teamops/). Everyone can learn and become certified in TeamOps through GitLab’s learning portal.\n\nAs another mile marker of the power of the everyone can contribute mission, GitLab also just celebrated one year as [a public company](/blog/one-third-of-what-we-learned-about-ipos-in-taking-gitlab-public/)!\n\nI hope you enjoy Gource’s video visualization, which is filled with the glow of light - seems very appropriate for the many global cultural festivals at this time of year that use light and fireworks to celebrate their communities!\n\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n\u003Ciframe width=\"1870\" height=\"937\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/QxLzyJDljpg\" title=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen>\u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\n\nIf you'd like to become a contributor, check out our [contribution guide](/community/contribute/).\n",[255,723,724],"contributors","features",{"slug":726,"featured":12,"template":13},"everyone-who-has-contributed",{"content":728,"config":738},{"title":729,"description":730,"authors":731,"heroImage":733,"date":734,"body":735,"category":9,"tags":736},"The many routes to a tech career","GitLab team members of different ages and backgrounds share their entry into this industry.",[732],"Heather Simpson","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749667236/Blog/Hero%20Images/Learn-at-GL.jpg","2022-10-04","\nThe path to a career in technology isn’t always straight, particularly today. World and economic uncertainty, a lingering pandemic, a shift to remote work, and a need to do something that *matters* – all of these factors have caused sweeping changes in the broader workforce, in individual careers, and in the labor-shortage-plagued technology industry.\n\n## Tech career: Overview and insights\n\nEver wondered how to get into the tech world? To help try to make sense of it all, we asked three GitLab team members how they made their way into technology, and why they stay. Each has a different story to tell.\n\n### [Mark Loveless](https://gitlab.com/mloveless), Staff Security Engineer\n\nFollow Mark on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/simplenomad)\n\nI’ve been working since the age of 16 at various jobs, eventually gaining my first real tech job in 1990 as customer support at a call center. I had always had an interest in security and moved into more of a true security role in the mid-1990s, followed by my first security research job in 1999. For many in the security field, security research was fairly brand-new territory, so those of us who had been working for quite a while found ourselves reporting to individuals our own age or younger. Later on in my career this more or less became the norm, as my peers were almost always younger than me.\n\nI did, on occasion, run into prejudices involving my age, with the main two being as follows:\n- I was often overlooked for exploring new technologies as it was assumed I would not “get it.”\n\n- It was assumed that there was something wrong with me for not being in management. I love learning new things and am constantly exploring new technology. I’ve never had the desire to go into management as I preferred the independent contributor (IC) role.\n\nTo stay active and “keep up on the latest” whether it be the newest apps or what some weird meme means, well, Google is your friend. I try to stay active on at least some social media sites. I have friends and family who are much younger than me that I interact with a lot, and I ask a lot of questions. All of these steps have helped me substantially.\n\nIt is nice that when some new bit of tech comes out, I now have family and friends asking me what it's all about, and they certainly start asking if it is considered “safe” technology because they know my background. I’m fortunate that here at GitLab what knowledge I have is appreciated, no one assumes I can or cannot do something because of my age or because of preconceived ideas about what I might know at this point in my career.\n\n### [Juliet Wanjohi](https://gitlab.com/jwanjohi), Senior Security Engineer\n\nFollow Juliet on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/jay_wanjohi)\n\nI started in tech by undertaking a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. I had an interest in software engineering before I decided to specialize in another area of interest: security. My goal was to blend my knowledge and skills in the two fields, and create a niche for myself as a security software engineer. I got the wonderful opportunity to be a part of the GitLab [Engineering Internship program](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/working-groups/engineering-internship/) and progressed on to become a full-time security engineer on the [Security Automation](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/security/security-engineering/automation/) team in 2020.\n\nIt was both exciting and overwhelming to join such a distinguished, mature team while still being very green in the security field. I was among the youngest members of the team, which definitely drew out my imposter syndrome. Despite this, GitLab offered a welcoming environment where I felt comfortable and encouraged to bring my ideas forward, and contribute as any other team member would. About a year later, I was promoted to senior security engineer, highlighting the fact that number of years of experience does not necessarily translate to seniority; you also don’t have to be of a certain age to work at a certain level of a role. It all comes down to your skills, and a willingness to further your passion and be better at what you do.\n\nIn previous junior roles I had experienced negative effects of stereotypical thinking and unconscious bias, where my contributions were not valued because of my age. I was often overlooked when it came to opportunities to lead presentations or own projects. This made me feel like I had to work harder and put more pressure to prove myself “worthy.” Such occurrences should not discourage anyone who’s young and new to tech, but instead push you to confidently contribute your ideas, and look for ways to expand your reach by making the most of the networking and learning opportunities available to you.\n\nIt’s important to research and evaluate the culture of a company before joining it. Take a look at the initiatives the company carries out to increase awareness against these biases and the efforts to support those who are new to the field (whether they be due to age or career path). I feel lucky to be a part of GitLab, as there are [dedicated resources for team member career, growth, and development](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/learning-and-development/career-development/#resources-for-team-members), including a newly created [Early Career Professionals Team Member Discussion Group](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/inclusion/tmdg-gitlab-early-career/). The group helps those that are early career professionals in the team by supporting their growth and increasing awareness in the organization around the challenges they face on a day-to-day basis.\n\n### [Pj Metz](https://gitlab.com/PjMetz), Education Evangelist\n\nFollow Pj on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/metzinaround)\n\nI made a transition into tech at 35 years old. I didn’t feel 35 when I started though because I had only just started learning about tech through coding a year before I started at GitLab. Instead, I felt 19 – brand-new and lost in a world in which I had no experience.\n\nAs a teacher, I was confident in my abilities in the classroom. I was, not to brag, a great English teacher. I was engaging, excited about the material, and worked hard to make it relatable and enjoyable for as many students as possible. Leaving after 11 years was not an easy choice, especially because my degrees felt suddenly useless. What other work could I possibly do with a Master’s degree in Secondary English Education?\n\nI joined GitLab as an Education Evangelist in our [Education Program](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/developer-relations/community-programs/education-program/) and was able to draw on my former knowledge base, but not completely.\n\nAlthough I don’t have to code for my role, I have to know coding, which I had only started to learn in 2020 in between grading papers and working with a marching band at my high school. I also have to know how to talk to students and educators in a variety of concentrations. Computer Science, Information Systems, Business Analysis, and other degree programs are all looking to use [GitLab for Education](/solutions/education/), and I have to find ways to make it relevant for them.\n\nThis challenge has led to some of the hardest moments of my professional life. I can navigate an unmotivated teenager in class, a parent email about their child’s low grades that blames me, an administrator suddenly showing up for an observation, a drumline member who hasn’t figured out the rhythm for the halftime show opener, or an AP student stuck on analysis of the assigned article. However, this is different. The career I entered into is full of jargon and standards that were unfamiliar to me.\n\nI had a lot to learn. What are stock options? What is Slack? How do I structure my time if there isn’t a bell ringing to let me know the beginning and end of class? What is an expense report? People expect someone my age to know these things already.\n\nI have a sticker on my laptop case that looks like the kind you’d get at a small meetup, the kind that says “HELLO, I’m...” and then there is a space to write your name. This sticker says: “Hello, I’m Still Learning.” I have this not so people can lower their expectations of me; instead, its purpose is to highlight that we should all still be learning and I’m going to be open about what I don’t know. I’m doing my best to turn my perceived shortcomings into strengths by bringing a mindset of [iteration](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#iteration) to my work, something GitLab helped me realize was important.\n\nI’m still learning, and feel so far behind some of my colleagues, but GitLab and my team have worked hard to create a space for me to feel comfortable while I work through this career change. It helps that my manager is also a former educator, so she understands the change from education to the corporate world.\n\nShe reminds me to take time for myself after each conference or lecture. My onboarding buddy still meets with me regularly to help me work through something technical or to give advice about a project I’m working on. Every opportunity to connect with people as a person, whether through a [coffee chat or the “Donut-be-strangers” Slack bot](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/all-remote/informal-communication/#coffee-chats), which matches me with another, random team member, helps me remain grounded in the humanity of my work. Every team meeting I’m in has a reminder of the importance of taking time for ourselves, and a section in the agenda to cheer each other’s accomplishments. I couldn’t ask for a better place to have my first non-teaching job.\n\n### What’s your story?\n\nHow’d you get into tech? Make any pit stops along the way, or have you always been working in this industry? Let us know in the comments field. Also, if you are considering GitLab as your next step, check out our handbook to learn more about [our culture](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/), and then take a peek at our [open roles](/jobs/all-jobs/)!\n",[737,710],"careers",{"slug":739,"featured":12,"template":13},"the-many-routes-to-a-tech-career",{"promotions":741},[742,756,768],{"id":743,"categories":744,"header":746,"text":747,"button":748,"image":753},"ai-modernization",[745],"ai-ml","Is AI achieving its promise at scale?","Quiz will take 5 minutes or less",{"text":749,"config":750},"Get your AI maturity score",{"href":751,"dataGaName":752,"dataGaLocation":237},"/assessments/ai-modernization-assessment/","modernization assessment",{"config":754},{"src":755},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/qix0m7kwnd8x2fh1zq49.png",{"id":757,"categories":758,"header":760,"text":747,"button":761,"image":765},"devops-modernization",[759,553],"product","Are you just managing tools or shipping innovation?",{"text":762,"config":763},"Get your DevOps maturity score",{"href":764,"dataGaName":752,"dataGaLocation":237},"/assessments/devops-modernization-assessment/",{"config":766},{"src":767},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138785/eg818fmakweyuznttgid.png",{"id":769,"categories":770,"header":772,"text":747,"button":773,"image":777},"security-modernization",[771],"security","Are you trading speed for security?",{"text":774,"config":775},"Get your security maturity score",{"href":776,"dataGaName":752,"dataGaLocation":237},"/assessments/security-modernization-assessment/",{"config":778},{"src":779},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/p4pbqd9nnjejg5ds6mdk.png",{"header":781,"blurb":782,"button":783,"secondaryButton":788},"Start building faster today","See what your team can do with the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps.\n",{"text":784,"config":785},"Get your free trial",{"href":786,"dataGaName":44,"dataGaLocation":787},"https://gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new?glm_content=default-saas-trial&glm_source=about.gitlab.com/","feature",{"text":489,"config":789},{"href":48,"dataGaName":49,"dataGaLocation":787},1772652096057]