The CEO shadow program at GitLab is not a job title but a temporary assignment to shadow the CEO. The shadow(s) will be present at all meetings of the CEO. GitLab is all remote but the CEO has in-person meetings with external organizations. Therefore, you will live in San Francisco during the entire rotation and travel with the CEO.
The goal of the shadow program is to give current and future directors and senior leaders at GitLab an overview of all aspects of the company. This should lead to leadership who are able to do global optimizations. The program will also create opportunities for the CEO to develop relationships with team members across the company to identify challenges and opportunities earlier.
Apart from creating leadership opportunities, the CEO shadow program leaves a great impression on both the investors and customers.
You will attend all meetings of the CEO, this includes but not limited to:
You will travel with the CEO to meetings, team off-sites and conferences outside of San Francisco per the CEO's schedule. Executive Admin to the CEO will assist you with conference registration and travel accommodations during these time frames.
The CEO's executive assistant should ask external people if they are comfortable with the shadow joining prior to the scheduled meeting and will share a link to the CEO Shadow page to provide context.
Meeting agendas should be shared with ceo-shadow@gitlab.com. For agendas that contain sensitive information, the sensitive information should be removed and the document shared with "View only" access to restrict access to the document's history. If an agenda has not been shared, the CEO Shadow should contact the document owner for access.
These meetings can have different formats:
You will not attend when:
This is probably the most open program in the world. It depends on the participants respecting confidentiality, during the program, after the program, and after they leave GitLab.
When introducing yourself in a meeting as the first shadow say:
When introducing yourself in a meeting as the second shadow say:
We want many people to be able to benefit from this program, therefore we rotate often. It is important that an incoming person is trained so that the management overhead can be light. Currently, a rotation is two weeks:
The shadow should be available for the full two weeks.
When the CEO has a week or more of paid time off or during Contribute the shadow program will pause, one shadow will "see one" before the break and "teach one" after the break. The rotations with breaks of one or more weeks without a shadow are great if you can't to be away from home for more than one week at a time.
Also, if you'll need childcare to be able to participate, GitLab will reimburse you for it.
This program is not limited just to long-term GitLab team members. For new team members this might be the first thing they do after completing our onboarding. Exceptional community members may be able to participate also.
You are eligible to apply for the program if you haved accepted an offer at GitLab as a:
Considerations are cumulative and can be:
You're also eligible if you work(ed) as an investor and helped with an investment in GitLab in a private round :)
| Start date | End date | See one | Teach one |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-06-24 | 2019-06-28 | Lyle Kozloff - Support Engineer Manager | Clinton Sprauve - Technical Marketing Manager |
| 2019-07-01 | 2019-07-05 | No Shadow - Vacation | No Shadow - Vacation |
| 2019-07-08 | 2019-07-12 | Marin Jankovski - Engineering Manager, Delivery | Lyle Kozloff - Support Engineering Manager |
| 2019-07-15 | 2019-07-19 | No Shadow - Vacation | No Shadow - Vacation |
| 2019-07-22 | 2019-07-26 | Danae Villarreal - Sales Development Representative, West | Marin Jankovski - Engineering Manager, Delivery |
| 2019-07-29 | 2019-08-02 | Daniel Croft - Engineering Manager, Package | Danae Villarreal - Sales Development Representative, West |
| 2019-08-05 | 2019-08-09 | Emilie Schario - Data Analyst, Finance | Daniel Croft - Engineering Manager, Package |
| 2019-08-12 | 2019-08-16 | Kenny Johnston - Director of Product, Ops | Emilie Schario - Data Analyst, Finance |
| 2019-08-19 | 2019-08-23 | JJ Cordz - Senior Marketing Operations Manager | Kenny Johnston - Director of Product, Ops |
| 2019-08-26 | 2019-09-06 | No Shadow - Vacation | No Shadow - Vacation |
| 2019-09-09 | 2019-09-13 | No Shadow - Conference | No Shadow - Conference |
| 2019-09-16 | 2019-09-20 | Eric Brinkman - Director of Product | JJ Cordz - Senior Marketing Operations Manager |
| 2019-09-23 | 2019-09-27 | Danielle Morrill - General Manager, Meltano | Eric Brinkman - Director of Product |
| 2019-09-30 | 2019-10-04 | No Shadow - Vacation | No Shadow - Vacation |
| 2019-10-07 | 2019-10-11 | Mek Stittri - Director of Quality | Danielle Morrill - General Manager, Meltano |
| 2019-10-14 | 2019-10-18 | No Shadow | No Shadow |
| 2019-10-21 | 2019-10-25 | Kyla Gradin - Mid Market Account Executive | Mek Stittri - Director of Quality |
| 2019-10-28 | 2019-11-01 | Clement Ho - Frontend Engineering Manager | Kyla Gradin - Mid Market Account Executive |
| 2019-11-04 | 2019-11-08 | Chenje Katanda - Support Engineer | Clement Ho - Frontend Engineering Manager |
| 2019-11-11 | 2019-11-15 | AVAILABLE | Chenje Katanda - Support Engineer (2019-11-04 rotation) |
| 2019-11-18 | 2019-11-22 | AVAILABLE | AVAILABLE (2019-11-11 rotation) |
| 2019-11-25 | 2019-12-31 | No Shadow | No Shadow |
If you have questions regarding the planned rotation schedule, please ping the Executive Admin to CEO.
Since a rotation is over a short period there are no long running tasks that you can assume.
The tasks consist of short term tasks, for example:
Shadows are encouraged to follow the CEO's activity on Slack to gather a complete picture of his everyday engagements. Go to the Slack search bar and type "from:@sid" and it will populate the results.
Follow Sid's Slack activity to follow his everyday engagements
An ongoing shadow program with a fast rotation is much more time consuming for the CEO then a temporary program or a rotation of a year or longer. Therefore most organizations either have a shadow for two days or have someone for a year or more. We want to give many people the opportunity to be a shadow so we rotate quickly. To make this happen without having to invest a lot of time to train people coming in we need great documentation. Therefore a quick turnaround on documentation is of paramount importance. And the documentation will have a level of detail that isn't needed in other parts of the organization.
When attending events with the CEO, keep the following in mind:
Outgoing shadows are responsible for training incoming shadows. Here's a list of things to make sure you cover:
You are welcome to work from the Mission Control but it is not required to be present in-person unless there is an in-person meeting, event, or dinner. It's up to you to manage your schedule and get to places on time. If you are traveling somewhere, meet the CEO at the Mission Control at the beginning of the alloted travel time listed on the calendar.
If there is a day during your program where all meetings are Zoom meetings, you can work from wherever you want, as your normally would. You can work from the Mission Control if you prefer. If you decide to split your day between remote work and working from the Mission Control, make sure you give yourself enough time to get to the Mission Control and set up for the guest. It's OK to join calls while mobile.
Shadows are welcome in the Mission Control from 7:30 until 6pm. Feel free to ask if you can stay later. Don't worry about overstaying you're welcome, if Karen or Sid would like privacy they will ask you to leave explicitly.
One more thing: the cat feeder is automatic and goes off daily at 10:22am PT. No need to be alarmed by the metallic clanging sound.
When entering the building, the doorperson will ask who you are there to see. Don't say "GitLab" since there is no GitLab office. The doorperson will direct you to the correct lobby.
There is one set of keys so the shadows will need to coordinate access to the Mission Control. The fob is for the elevator and the key is for the Mission Control.
We have six monitors at Mission Control. They should be configured as follows:
| Top Left Team | Top Middle Stages from homepage | Top Right Clari Sales Dashboard - This Quarter |
| Bottom Left Category Maturity | Bottom Middle Who we replace | Bottom Right Clari Sales Dashboard - Next Quarter |
To configure the sales dashboards:
The wireless mouse and keyboard are connected to the bottom left TV by default because that one is visible from both sides of the conference table. To update the view on another TV, you have to connect the wireless keyboard and mouse to the desired screen. Afterwards don't forget to return it to the bottom left position for use during meetings.
To screencast from an iPad or MacBook to the monitors, switch the "Source" on the bottom middle screen to "Apple TV" by navigating through the bottom menu. Click the home button on the remote control for that screen to open the menu. If the AppleTV is not recognized, use the remote control to turn the device on.
In preparation for guests (customers, investors, etc.) who will be meeting with the CEO or other team members at Mission Control, please note the following prior to the meeting start:
Join in the Zoom Meetings app and input the meeting ID from the Google Calendar invite of the meeting in question.Lodging during the CEO shadow program is provided by the company. CEO executive assistant books the accommodation based on availability and cost. You can express your preference (hotel or AirBnB) via email to the Executive Admin to the CEO in question, however the final decision is made by the Executive Admin based on the distance from CEO and costs. Executive Admin will provide the accommodation details no earlier than 1 month and no later than 2 weeks before the scheduled rotation.
Accommodation is provided only for the active shadowing period, it is not provided during the shadow program pause (cases when the CEO is unavailable). In case you are coming from a timezone that is more than 6 hours difference with Pacific Time, it is possible to book the weekend before the first shadow work day to adjust to the new timezone.
Airfare can be booked according to our travel policy or spending company money policy. In case your shadow rotation includes time without shadowing, it is possible to expense airfare to fly home and back within the continental USA. If you are from outside of the USA, it is also possible to expense airfaire during the time without shadow because of the possible high cost of lodging in San Francisco if you chose to stay at a different location.
Childcare is provided during the active shadowing period and will be reimbursed via your expense report. You must book the childcare yourself and it is advised you reach out far in advance as childcare "drop-ins" can be limited depending on the week. Currently, GitLab doesn't have a "Backup Care" program so you must tell the childcare it is for a "drop-in". Depending on your hotel accommodations, finding a nearby daycare is most convenient or a daycare nearby the Millennium tower. Some childcare facilities will require payment at end-of-day or end-of-week via cash/check only so request an invoice/receipt for expense submission purposes.
Past Childcare facilities that have been accommodating:
For now this role is called a CEO shadow to make it clear to external people why a shadow is in a meeting.
Other names considered are:
Please note that we have a cat named Suzy. It is a Russian Blue mix which is a hypoallergenic variety. If you're allergic to cats consider washing you hands after petting.
Suzy likes attention and will invite you to pet her. Please don't pet her after she meows since that reinforces the meowing which can be annoying during calls and the night. You can pick her up but she doesn't like it much and will jump out after about 30 seconds.
| Start date | End date | Name | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-03 | 2019-04 | Erica Lindberg | Manager, Content Marketing |
| 2019-04 | 2019-05 | Mayank Tahil | Alliances Manager |
| 2019-04 | 2019-05 | Tye Davis | Sr. Technical Marketing Manager |
| 2019-05 | 2019-06 | John Coghlan | Evangelist Program Manager |
| 2019-06 | 2019-06 | Cindy Blake | Sr. Product Marketing Manager |
| 2019-06 | 2019-06 | Nnamdi Iregbulem | MBA Candidate at Stanford University |
