The Infrastructure Platforms section enables GitLab Engineering to build and deliver safe, scalable and efficient features for multi-tenant and single-tenant GitLab SaaS platforms (GitLab.com and GitLab Dedicated).
Vision
To deliver on the mission, we are in the process of formalising the building blocks we need to work on.
Initiatives driven within the Platforms section, often spanning multiple quarters, are represented on the SaaS Platforms section epic.
How we work
Communication
We collaborate on the section level items in the #s_platforms Slack channel. This channel is used to share important information with the wider team, but also serves to align all teams in Platfroms with the common topic.
For communication between managers, we have #g_saas_platforms_leads channel. Everyone interested is welcome to join this channel if they find the topics interesting. We also have a confidential managers channel that is used to discuss staffing issues affecting all teams that require additional coordination.
Once per week, we hold a Platforms leads call to align on action items related to career development, general direction or answer any ongoing questions that have not been addressed async. The call is cancelled when there are no topics added on the morning of the call.
In addition to the Platforms leads call, we have some recurring events and reminders that can be viewed in the SaaS Platforms Leadership Calendar. Please add this to your Calendars to stay up-to-date with the various events.
The Director of Product and Director of Infrastructure for SaaS Platforms conduct weekly progress reviews. During Platforms Grand Review, they review progress across all groups with the goals of being informed of progress made, learning about existing blockers, and supporting the team. The review is private streamed to the GitLab Unfiltered channel because the review covers confidential issues. All recordings are made available in the Platforms Grand Review YouTube Playlist.
Project and Backlog Management
We use epics and issues to manage our work. Our project management process is shared between all teams in SaaS Plaforms.
Tools
The Platforms section builds and maintains various tools to help deploy, operate and monitor our SaaS platforms. You can view a list of these tools in the Platforms Tools Index.
OKR
OKRs (or other items outside of projects) that require progress tracking should be updated every Wednesday.
When writing OKRs, the guidance is that:
Objective is defined as “What do you want to achieve?”
Key Results is defined as “How will you know when you’ve achieved the objective?”
As part of a KR, you can also have a sub point - which will likely tie to an epic. This would be an “Initiative”, defined as “How are you going to achieve your key result?”
The OKR Description should have the following format:
### Context
<context about the Objective and the problem it is trying to solve>
### Linked Epics
| Epic Title | Epic Link |
| ---------- | --------- |
| <title> | <link> |
### Scoring Criteria
<This section should list the Scoring Criteria of each Key Results part of the Objective. Different KRs could contribute with different weights to the Objective completion>
If an Objective description also needs other sections, these can be added after the block above.
All the statuses of the Epics linked to the OKR (Linked Epics table) should be updated each Wednesday, to prevent drift between OKR’s and linked epics.
OKR Retrospective
At the end of the quarter, each OKR should have a retrospective section at the top of the Description field,
with the format below:
### Retro
#### Good
<2-3 bullet points summarising what went well during this OKR>
#### Bad
<2-3 bullet points summarising what didn't go well during this OKR>
#### Try
<2-3 bullet points summarising what we should try to do differently next time>
After the Retro section is finalized, the OKR can be closed.
All team members are encouraged to schedule time for personal development. The following links may help you get started with Platforms-relevant learning. Please add your own contributions to this list to help others with their personal development.
Tools The Platforms section builds and maintains various tools to help deploy, operate and monitor our SaaS platforms. The below table is an index to help with the discovery and organization of tools that are actively maintained:
Tool Description Tamland Capacity planning forecasts for GitLab.com Stage Group Ownership Index Index of stage groups and their owned objects Stage Group Error Budgets Objective metrics to determine the reliability of a service Service Maturity Model Overview of each service’s operating capabilities Runway GitLab’s internal Platform as a Service implementation
All links under infrastructure/team/reliability/ have been moved or deprecated. If you are seeing this due to accessing a page under that path, we have probably deleted or relocated the content.
If you believe the content you are trying to access should still be in the handbook, please post a message in the #production_engineering Slack channel so we can see if the content is still relevant.
Project Management in SaaS Platforms We use GitLab epics and issues to communicate the progress and status of our work. The SaaS Platforms epic is indexing the top level epic for each team, and links to active OKR’s for a given quarter. All teams in SaaS Plaforms follow these guidelines so that it is easy for team-members to contribute to different projects if needed.
Projects are reviewed weekly in the Grand Review Every Wednesday, the DRI for a project is expected to update the status block in the epic description to:
