I’m leaving GitLab. Here’s what I’ve learned.

When you work for a company like GitLab, its values leave an indelible mark in who you become. There are three specific changes that have occurred as a result of my time here.

Transparency

I was never very transparent or open. I’ve had pseudonyms galore. Even my stage names have stage names. Self-revelation of any sort, was a painful act, done only under the most careful of circumstances.

GitLab provided a safe place for being open about my work, including failures. Nat Friedman (who now runs GitHub), once said of GitLab, “A low level of shame is intrinsic to your culture.” I didn’t have to be a perfectionist anymore, which also meant I could openly try things and share my work.

My first Director of Sales Development and Marketing in my time here made his work publicly viewable and available. So I followed his lead and created a repository to share all of my calls, the emails I worked on, my iterations on messaging, even notes from the books I was reading.

Furthermore, Sandler methodology showed me how to be honest in selling. This gave me a testing ground to practice these principles in work, which then allowed me to practice them in daily life.

As I practiced transparency, it became easier and easier to just share and be honest about everything else. And because of this, I’ve been able to let go of deep-seated fears of being misunderstood.

Other people will never have all the information that I do… so by being transparent and providing as much context as possible, I’m able to have more productive conversations and meaningful relationships.

Iteration

I have a lot of projects I’ve never published. This meant I didn’t get the full-benefit of actually doing that work, because I didn’t close the loop and get feedback, good or bad. (This is often the hardest GitLab value to put into practice, especially by folks far away from software/engineering.)

As I’ve come to understand and practice iteration, it’s about doing the smallest possible thing, and shipping. A challenge, especially for idealists like myself, is in scoping down the initial vision.

A metaphor for this I’ve liked is that you’re not launching a rocketship (which requires that your trajectory be correct from the start), but driving a car (where you can make wrong turns and take scenic routes and still get to your destination).

If you’re not completing projects or have too much WIP, try scoping down the vision and shipping MVCs (Minimum Viable Change) out the door.

Collaboration

I’ve been a loner my whole life. Group projects and working with others has never been my strong suite. (I’ve had issues around control, powerlessness, and vision.)

As I moved into the Acceleration team however, I learned to rely on others for input, to surrender my need for creative control, and commit to shared success rather than perfect execution of my singular vision.

Much is often said about the tech stack, the tools involved, and how you collaborate in a remote environment. But really at the end of the day it’s having a shared vision and working together for each others’ success. That’s an attitude, that’s culture.

And you know what? That made the job more fun. I made connections and lifelong friends.

Conclusion

When you join a company, you commit to spending much of your waking hours living, breathing, and absorbing that culture (even if it’s only by osmosis). The person you are before you join, will be different from the person you’ll be by the time you leave.

Qui cum canibus concumbunt cum pulicibus surgent

edit. 2020.07.31 (I meant to look for a similar phrase with a positive connotation, but couldn't find an appropriate idiom. My experience has been nothing but positive and the above by no means suggestive of negativity. I'm leaving it in so that if I ever do come across a phrase meaning the same thing, but with a positive connotation, I can keep track)