[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":797},["ShallowReactive",2],{"/en-us/blog/remote-enables-innovation":3,"navigation-en-us":41,"banner-en-us":441,"footer-en-us":451,"blog-post-authors-en-us-Victor Wu":693,"blog-related-posts-en-us-remote-enables-innovation":707,"assessment-promotions-en-us":747,"next-steps-en-us":787},{"id":4,"title":5,"authorSlugs":6,"body":8,"categorySlug":9,"config":10,"content":14,"description":8,"extension":28,"isFeatured":12,"meta":29,"navigation":30,"path":31,"publishedDate":20,"seo":32,"stem":36,"tagSlugs":37,"__hash__":40},"blogPosts/en-us/blog/remote-enables-innovation.yml","Remote Enables Innovation",[7],"victor-wu",null,"culture",{"slug":11,"featured":12,"template":13},"remote-enables-innovation",false,"BlogPost",{"title":15,"description":16,"authors":17,"heroImage":19,"date":20,"body":21,"category":9,"tags":22},"How remote work enables rapid innovation at GitLab","At GitLab, remote isn’t a business operations risk, it’s a competitive advantage.",[18],"Victor Wu","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749678666/Blog/Hero%20Images/paper-lanterns.jpg","2019-02-27","\nI’m a Product Manager here at GitLab, primarily contributing to the [Plan stage](/direction/plan/)\nof the [DevOps lifecycle](/stages-devops-lifecycle/). I joined in November 2016 and I’ve witnessed incredible\ngrowth in GitLab the product as well as GitLab the team. Many\nnew hires have asked me during [coffee chats](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/all-remote/#coffee-chats)\nabout GitLab culture and remote work in particular, since we're an [all-remote](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/all-remote/)\ncompany. My view has evolved over this time and I wanted to share specifically why I think\nremote is _not_ a challenge to overcome, but actually a _competitive advantage_, at least for GitLab.\n\n## A remote journey\n\nWhen I joined GitLab, I thought remote was a challenge to overcome or at least\nto manage. It was a risk to be mitigated. For example, I really wanted daily standup\nmeetings with the engineering team I was working with. Silicon Valley-style tech\ncompanies and product management books tell us that frequent, synchronous, face-to-face\ncommunication is necessary for building successful products efficiently and to win\nin the marketplace. To my dismay at the time, we never had in-sync standups (and\nmy team today still doesn’t have them). But curiously, we nonetheless had immense\ncollaboration and continued to ship product at a high velocity. Something really\nweird and unexpected was going on.\n\nLater on, as I started getting comfortable [doing product the GitLab way](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/product/),\nI started to think that remote wasn’t really a risk, but that there were just a\nfew negatives, and that the overall effect was net positive. See the [advantages and disadvantages of remote](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/all-remote/#advantages-for-employees).\n\nToday, I realize that even a positive-negative accounting of remote is insufficient\nto articulate what remote means at GitLab. I think that remote\n(along with a few other key crucial GitLab ingredients) gives us a differentiated\nand competitive advantage, in particular allowing us to innovate at a rapid pace\nthat is truly unique. Here's why:\n\n## Interdependent ingredients\n\nThere are a several crucial and interdependent GitLab ingredients that make remote\ntruly work in our favor:\n\n### Async communication\n\nRemote implies geographic diversity (since we hire all over the world),\nand because most folks work during the day, that further implies time zone diversity.\nConsequently, we prefer **[Async communication (primarily with text)](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/)** as we scale our organization in\nspace-time. Async demands everything be written down and that it be clear and concise.\nYou can’t afford a prolonged back-and-forth conversation because every round-trip\ntransaction is possibly 24 hours in the worst case. In particular, we prefer text\nbecause the internet and modern apps (for example [GitLab issues](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/)) has allowed text\nto be easily organizable, searchable, and even hyperlinked. Text is easy to parse\nand thus consume. It is a highly efficient form of communication, especially for\ntransactional collaboration.\n\n### Transparency\n\nThe async communication we reference is also digital, making it infinitely\nscalable. Unlike the printed page in a physical office, anybody should\nbe able to access a digital message. So, rather than re-erecting the walls and silos\nthat plague traditional organizations and inevitably block collaboration, we\nmake communications and work **[transparent](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#transparency)** by default.\nAdding a layer of permissions is necessary sometimes, and in those cases it becomes an overhead cost to manage\nand use (for example fixing a security bug.) The transmitter of communications\nneeds to figure out who should receive, and set the appropriate permissions. The\nreceiver themself needs additional work to access the content. It’s more pain. It\nadds up. So we try to avoid it when we can.\n\n>Because you know everything you write down will potentially be viewed by anyone – inside or even outside the company – simply telling the truth is the optimal and most efficient strategy\n\nTransparency also makes it really easy to tell the truth, and disincentivizes dishonesty.\nTelling the truth is simply the right thing to do, but it’s also a great strategy\nto grow a long-term sustainable business. In particular, because you know everything\nyou write down will potentially be viewed by anyone in the company or even outside\nthe company, simply telling the truth is the optimal and most efficient strategy\nand you will thus adopt it with little friction. You don’t have to make up slightly\ndifferent versions for different stakeholders. You don’t have to keep track of all\nthese versions. And you only need a single artifact to document that one source\nof truth, which will never be out of sync, because there’s only one! For\nus, that single source of truth is typically the description in an issue.\n\n### Everyone can contribute\n\nWith a single source of truth that is consumable by anybody, it allows **[everyone to contribute](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/mission/#mission)**.\nEveryone has information parity. And so anyone is welcome to contribute. In fact,\nremember I mentioned above that the transmitter of information typically has an intended receiver\nin mind? In this case, oftentimes somebody who they didn’t expect can even participate\nand add value. This isn’t possible if there’s no transparency because artificial\nbarriers pre-close the opportunities of potential collaboration. Also, everyone\ncan contribute means future folks can participate too. You may start a conversation\non an idea that turns out to be suboptimal in the current circumstances. But it\nmight end up being just a timing issue. And so posterity might be able to recover\nthe old idea and ship a feature later on, taking advantage of all the discussions\nthat were had and made available publicly.\n\nEveryone can contribute also means that the diversity of ideas skyrockets. And so\nat GitLab, people often cross departments and offer some of the best ideas to solve\nbig challenging problems. But we still have [directly responsible individuals](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/directly-responsible-individuals/)\nto make decisions in order to avoid analysis paralysis.\n\n### Iteration\n\nFinally, how can all this communication and collaboration truly function if the\nmechanisms are so transactional, distributed, and unstructured? It works because\nit forces us to be **[iterative](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#iteration)**. Most people think they understand iteration (myself\nincluded) before joining GitLab. But I’ve discovered over and over again that new\nfolks are surprised that this concept is taken to an extreme. Product\nand code are shipped in the absolute smallest piece possible in an effort to get\nfeedback and momentum. Implementing programs and processes at GitLab means breaking\noff the smallest chunk and then putting it into action right away. We still make\nbig, bold plans and big bets on the future. But we don’t obsess over extended analysis.\nInstead we find the smallest thing that we can do now and we do it. We believe that\nwaiting until tomorrow is an opportunity cost. Doing something small today is low\nrisk and results in immediate feedback. We have a [bias for action](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#bias-for-action).\n\n>We believe that waiting until tomorrow is an opportunity cost. Doing something small today is low\nrisk and results in immediate feedback.\n\nAnd so if all our communication and collaboration is focused on small iterations,\nthe scope of a typical  problem is small and manageable. And it turns out (unsurprisingly)\nmore people are willing to participate in a small problem if it literally takes\nthem a few moments to voluntarily glance at an issue description, instead of being\nforced to attend a two-hour slide presentation explaining a big problem.\nAnd since the problem is made transparent by default, the pool of contributors is\nvery high, as mentioned earlier. Personally, I am actively involved\nin at least 20 to 30 parallel problem conversations on a daily basis. It is impossible\nfor anyone to achieve that level of productivity if all to those conversations required\ndedicated, ongoing, synchronous meetings. This results in an incredible rate of collaboration\nfor myself. Multiply that by all team members at GitLab, and then also all GitLab\ncommunity members further still, and you can see now why GitLab’s pace of innovation\nis ridiculously high.\n\nRemote is not a challenge for GitLab to overcome. It’s a clear business advantage.\n\n## Ending caveat\n\nThe picture I’ve painted here is one of constant messaging and wild ideas. And\nthat’s intentional because it’s true. New folks joining GitLab often are inundated\nby the number of discussions they find themselves involved in after several weeks\nin. This is indeed an ongoing risk for GitLab especially as we scale and the level\nof ideation grows exponentially in relation to headcount (since communication links\ngrow exponentially as nodes in a people network grow). I’ve observed that GitLab\nteam members usually figure out a way to cope soon enough, and typically become\nmore selective in their communications over time. I think this is a good general\nstrategy overall, because good ideas tend to get more attention, and we essentially\nrely on the wisdom of the crowds to surface them. Of course we still have well-defined\nroles and responsibilities that serve as guardrails too, that allow subject matter\nexperts and directly responsible individuals to strategically guide our innovation\nin the right general direction.\n\nHow are you making remote work work? Let us know in the comments or tweet us [@gitlab](https://twitter.com/gitlab).\n\n[Cover image](https://unsplash.com/photos/TaXPogWdzR0) by [amseaman](https://unsplash.com/@amseaman) on Unsplash\n",[23,24,25,26,27],"collaboration","inside GitLab","remote work","startups","workflow","yml",{},true,"/en-us/blog/remote-enables-innovation",{"title":15,"description":16,"ogTitle":15,"ogDescription":16,"noIndex":12,"ogImage":19,"ogUrl":33,"ogSiteName":34,"ogType":35,"canonicalUrls":33},"https://about.gitlab.com/blog/remote-enables-innovation","https://about.gitlab.com","article","en-us/blog/remote-enables-innovation",[23,38,39,26,27],"inside-gitlab","remote-work","NHZ0wd17pMJmN0Dyf1jXFO5uMla3gpKYhGF4qVrWB44",{"data":42},{"logo":43,"freeTrial":48,"sales":53,"login":58,"items":63,"search":371,"minimal":402,"duo":421,"pricingDeployment":431},{"config":44},{"href":45,"dataGaName":46,"dataGaLocation":47},"/","gitlab logo","header",{"text":49,"config":50},"Get free 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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.",[713],"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",[548,558,24],{"slug":719,"featured":30,"template":13},"developer-relations-at-gitlab-what-weve-learned-since-our-start",{"content":721,"config":732},{"title":722,"description":723,"authors":724,"heroImage":726,"date":727,"body":728,"category":9,"tags":729},"Visualizing 11 years of GitLab contributions","Check out this animated video, which beautifully visualizes every contribution since our start.",[725],"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",[263,730,731],"contributors","features",{"slug":733,"featured":12,"template":13},"everyone-who-has-contributed",{"content":735,"config":745},{"title":736,"description":737,"authors":738,"heroImage":740,"date":741,"body":742,"category":9,"tags":743},"The many routes to a tech career","GitLab team members of different ages and backgrounds share their entry into this industry.",[739],"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",[744,24],"careers",{"slug":746,"featured":12,"template":13},"the-many-routes-to-a-tech-career",{"promotions":748},[749,763,775],{"id":750,"categories":751,"header":753,"text":754,"button":755,"image":760},"ai-modernization",[752],"ai-ml","Is AI achieving its promise at scale?","Quiz will take 5 minutes or less",{"text":756,"config":757},"Get your AI maturity score",{"href":758,"dataGaName":759,"dataGaLocation":245},"/assessments/ai-modernization-assessment/","modernization assessment",{"config":761},{"src":762},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/qix0m7kwnd8x2fh1zq49.png",{"id":764,"categories":765,"header":767,"text":754,"button":768,"image":772},"devops-modernization",[766,561],"product","Are you just managing tools or shipping innovation?",{"text":769,"config":770},"Get your DevOps maturity score",{"href":771,"dataGaName":759,"dataGaLocation":245},"/assessments/devops-modernization-assessment/",{"config":773},{"src":774},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138785/eg818fmakweyuznttgid.png",{"id":776,"categories":777,"header":779,"text":754,"button":780,"image":784},"security-modernization",[778],"security","Are you trading speed for security?",{"text":781,"config":782},"Get your security maturity score",{"href":783,"dataGaName":759,"dataGaLocation":245},"/assessments/security-modernization-assessment/",{"config":785},{"src":786},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/p4pbqd9nnjejg5ds6mdk.png",{"header":788,"blurb":789,"button":790,"secondaryButton":795},"Start building faster today","See what your team can do with the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps.\n",{"text":791,"config":792},"Get your free trial",{"href":793,"dataGaName":52,"dataGaLocation":794},"https://gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new?glm_content=default-saas-trial&glm_source=about.gitlab.com/","feature",{"text":497,"config":796},{"href":56,"dataGaName":57,"dataGaLocation":794},1772652087274]