Developing talent internally is a key component of our success at GitLab, and our promotion and transfer process is built to support that development in alignment with our values. Team members have two main avenues to pursue career advancement at GitLab: 1) Via our cyclical promotion calibration process, and 2) by applying and interviewing for open positions.
We encourage team members to take control of their own career advancement, and are empowered to own their development. Team members are encouraged to utilize the Individual Growth Plan as a tool to articulate and align with their manager on the skills they want to develop as they think about growing into a different or larger role. This page captures information about transfers, promotions, realignments and career mobility.
Our promotion philosophy comprises core pillars surrounding the approach and process alignment to our values.
Our promotion philosophy is also aligned with our values:
Most promotions are processed through our twice per year Promotion Calibrations, with exceptions going through Greenhouse or Workday depending on whether or not the individual interviews and accepts a position filling an approved headcount. More info on these 3 methods for processing a promotion below.
At GitLab, we promote on a twice per year basis. This means that there is one effective date every 6 months when team members can be promoted. We process promotions in Q1 (effective date February 1st) and Q3 (effective date August 1st). There are three core stages to the promotion process: Planning, Calibration, and Processing.
| Stage | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Planning | Managers and leaders to review their respective teams to determine promotion readiness, business need, and timeline for the upcoming quarters and project promotions. |
| Calibration | The calibration exercise is an opportunity for leaders (sync or async) to review projected promotions on a twice per year basis. This is an opportunity to create visibility and ensure consistency in who we are promoting and why. |
| Processing | The final stage once promotions are defined, is to determine where to process the promotion to finalize (this will take place via Workday or Greenhouse). |
Managers do not need to submit promotions that are part of the twice per year calibration process via Workday or Greenhouse. These will be processed by the PBP, Total Rewards, and People Connect team following calibration and Division leader approval. Below is the timeline for FY24:
Previously, we promoted on a quarterly basis, but transitioned to twice per year to ensure efficiency and scalability of our promotion process. We will move to our twice per year cadence effective in Q1 FY'25, meaning that Q3 FY'24 will be our last quarterly promotion cycle.
Please note that the Calibration timeline for Senior Director+ promotions will differ slightly from the timelines indicated above, as Senior Director+ promotions are calibrated twice per year at the E-group offsite.
Quarterly Promotion Planning is generally done via spreadsheets to maintain confidentiality and enable collaboration across department leaders where appropriate. Prior to the Planning phase in the timeline above, People Business Partners will make sure the spreadsheets are up to date before going into the Calibration phase.
The promotion document is required for all in-line promotions.
As the audience are other GitLab team members, the text should be written in third person using the team member's name and appropriate pronouns (he/she/they) to highlight the work and skills as evidence of the team member's suitability for the role.
In-line promotion documents should demonstrate values alignment, business need for the role, and team member readiness through delivery of impactful business results. The core sections in our promotion document are:
When creating promotion documents, remember:
Each quarter, Department/Division Leadership and the aligned People Business Partner plan a calibration session to review projected promotions. The goal of these calibration sessions is to set a fair and consistent standard in the Department for promotions, to allow peer reviews, and provide an opportunity to ask questions. These sessions can be async or sync.
During calibration sessions, leaders should be prepared to discuss:
Calibration should be aligned to the following levels of leaders and people managers:
| Promotion Level | Level Calibrated |
|---|---|
| Under Director level (Job Grade 5-9) | Calibrated at the Department level |
| Director level (Job Grade 10) | Calibrated at the Division level |
| Senior Director+ level (Job Grade 11-15) | Calibrated at the E-Group level |
Note that calibration structure may vary by division and department depending on size/scope/etc.
Philosophically, all promotions at GitLab are approached in the same way, follow the same high level process (Planning, Calibration, Processing), and use the same promotion document template.
Promotions to Senior Director+ level (job grade 11 and above) have the following differences:
The only exception to this process is when there is an open budgeted and publicly advertised vacancy for a Director or above level role that an internal team member interviews for and is offered. If external candidates have been considered and interviewed, and the internal candidate earns the role through a standard hiring process (screening, full interview process) then the recruiter may make an offer to the candidate as soon as the offer is approved. There should be no difference in the timing or process of making and accepting an offer for open roles between internal and external candidates.
GitLab tracks the following promotion metrics in Sisense
GitLab tracks Internal Mobility rate. Market data indicates that a 15% rolling promotion rate as the guideline for what we should see on average across the company for promotions. This is a guideline, not a cap.
GitLab targets an average of 5-10% compensation change in general for promotions. This metric is in place to ensure we are consistent and equitable across the company when allocating promotion compensation raises to team members, in addition to ensuring competitive and meaningful promotion increases across the board.
FP&A tracks budget impact by Department/Division on a quarterly basis.
Promotion budget is held at the division leader level, and optionally scaled down to department heads on a quarterly basis depending on department size. Decision to scale budget down is at the division leader's discretion.
Please review the Compensation Program Budget to understand how the quarterly promotion budget is allocated and the process to review potential tradeoffs if divisions/departments are over/under budget for any given quarter.
Certain types of promotions can be handled outside of the Quarterly Promotion Calibration process:
For exceptional situations where a promotion is not handled through the quarterly promotion calibration process or via an open requisition in Greenhouse, managers can work with their People Business Partner to submit promotions through Workday. Managers should reach out to their PBP via email and include a promotion document, justification for the exception, and next level manager approval for any compensation increase recommendations above 10%. Once the People Business Partner approves an exception, the promotion can be processed and the People Business Partner can submit the promotion in Workday. See the Workday Guide for help with submitting the changes.
| Promotion Level | Approvals Required |
|---|---|
| Under Director level (Job Grade 5-9) | 1) Direct Manager, 2) Department Head, 3) People Business Partner, 4) Total Rewards, 5) FP&A |
| Director+ level (Job Grade 10-15) | 1) Direct Manager, 2) Department Head, 3) People Business Partner, 4) Total Rewards, 5) FP&A, 6) E-Group Leader |
Approvals for the Director+ level off-cycle promotion exceptions require E-Group approval, and off-cycle promotions for levels under Director require approval through Department head.
Regardless of the promotion level, it is critical that leaders work with their People Business Partner, Total Rewards, and FP&A as outlined to identify tradeoffs we can review to fund the promotion.
The following types of promotions/transfers can be processed through Greenhouse:
For any transfer being submitted through Greenhouse hiring process, the following is required:
In order to ensure a consistent level of review for both internal promotions and new leadership roles, any net new VP and above "To be Hired" roles will be reviewed and approved by e-group. Senior leaders should partner with their People Business Partner to create a justficiation document for their proposed role. The justification document allows for e-group to better understand the business need for the role and how it will align within the organization.
This review is part of our organizational design discussions that occur during the e-group offsite.
Proposed roles can be reviewed as soon as the organization has visibility to the business need. However, if the need for a new VP+ role comes up outside of those organizational design discussions, it can be reviewed during the weekly e-group meeting to continue to ensure that we are agile and competitive in our hiring practices.
The justification document needs to be used when:
Things to consider before you start the process:
#new-vacancies Slack channel so that everyone has the opportunity to apply and be considered.At GitLab, we ensure that promotions are impactful from the compensation perspective, stay within range of the compensation calculator, and are equitable to peers in the same role. Managers propose a recommended increase in cash compensation for their direct report using the compensation calculator. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to your People Business Partner or the Total Rewards Team.
When reviewing compensation for a transfer in Greenhouse, the Total Rewards team will ensure internal equity among like roles ahead of approving the offer details using the following general guidelines:
This section describes the approval chain after the People Business Partner submits a promotion request in Workday.
1-1 meeting by sharing the letter of adjustment on the call. The Manager and the team member will process/sign the letter. Following the signatures, the manager will announce the promotion on the slack #team-member-updates channel. In the announcement the manager will describe how the individual met the promotion criteria and offer congratulations.People Connect Team will be notified via the People Connect team email inbox that the Letter of Adjustment has been created by the CES team and signed.
1Total Rewards Analyst to audit#team-member-updates Slack channel.people-connect@gitlab.com alias). Once the tracker is filled in, sort it by effective date.Note Letter of adjustment is sent to team member's GitLab email address.
As part of the career development structure within the Engineering division, interim and acting role opportunities occasionally arise. For more information on how interim and acting roles fit into Engineering career development, please reference the Engineering career development handbook page. For information on the interim and acting processes, please continue reading below.
As highlighted in the Defition section, all interim roles (regardless of the number of applicants) should go through the Greenhouse application and interview process. The interview process steps will be determined by the hiring manager and next level leader. This will contain several steps of the standard GitLab hiring process. The process for team members interested in applying for an interim role is as follows:
Once a team member successfully completes the interview process and is selected for the interim period, the following steps should be taken to ensure the team member is set up for success in their interim role.
Senior Manager, Engineering (Interim). This update serves as the SSOT for tracking interim start and end dates, in addition to providing transparency pertaining to who is currently executing in an interim role. Job code and job grade will remain the same, as interim periods have no impact on compensation i.e. do not update any other fields when initiating the Change Job Process.When the interim period comes to a close, one of two outcomes can occur:
The team member successfully completes the interim period aligned with the success criteria and moves into the interim role permanently.
Promotion - Promotion. The accomplishments leading up to the interim and during the interim can be used for the promotion document. The manager is responsible for creating the promotion document and recommending a compensation increase. Note: Promotion documents are only required if the team member move results in a promotion. For lateral moves, we do not require promotion documents.The team member does not complete the interim period successful or decides that the manager track is not something they want to pursue, and moves back to their role prior to the interim period.
Regardless of the outcome, when the interim period ends, the manager should review the Criteria For Eligibility for the Interim Bonus and submit an interim bonus request for the team member. Please ensure that the full bonus calculation is laid out in a comment of the bonus submission.
A person "acting" in the role is someone who occupies a role temporarily and will move back to their original role. "Acting" in a role may be to experiment with the role to determine if it fits an individual’s career development path goals, or may be filling in for a vacant role while we hire someone to fill the role permanently. While interim is only applicable to the Engineering division, acting is used across GitLab.
Interviews are not required role Acting roles as they generally do not end in promotion, nor are direct reports in Workday generally moved to Acting managers. The process for selecting someone for an acting position is:
When the acting period ends, the manager should review the Criteria For Eligibility for the Interim Bonus and submit an interim bonus request for the team member.
If you receive a job change or letter of adjustment to an interim role, process the change by:
Documents > Contracts & Changes Document Category (Do not choose Contracts & Changes - Confidential (No Employee View))Note: There are no changes that are made in Workday for acting roles. To track acting positions please follow this process.
Demotions are not always considered a step backwards. It may be an opportunity for a team member to acquire new skills or to move to a role that more closely aligns with their area of interest. To demote one of your direct reports, a manager should follow the following steps:
Job title specialties are used to indicate a stage, group and/or a specific focus area of the team member within their responsibilities. These specialties are not part of the job title, but are used to feed into reporting around stage, group and/or focus area investments. It is also a resource for the People Group and leaders to leverage to review organizational health metrics and ratios.
If any changes are required to a team members Job Title Speciality, the manager should email the People Connect team (people-connect@gitlab.com) promptly with the new job title specialty information along with the effective date of the change. It is an important manager responsibility to ensure this field remains accurate in Workday.
Different departments at GitLab manage job title specialties in different ways. Below, we have outlined guidance for certain departments to document how they thing through job title specialties to ensure a consistent approach.
To easily access a report for what current job title specialties are for your team, you can follow these steps:
Create: Source Code is correct formatting, and Create:Source Code is incorrect formatting. This helps ensure that when pulling reports we have accurate counts for investment alignment.Job Title Specialty field as opposed to the Job Title Specialty (Multi-Select) field.Note: For Support it’s not tied to stage, group but rather the focus of the role that is not captured in the Job title.
Job information changes are used to update any information on the team member’s profile in Workday that is not compensation related. The current manager submits all job information change requests (including requests to change team member's manager). These changes are required through Workday to have an approval trail for compliance reasons.
This job aid will help provide people managers with instructions on how to move team members to another manager within Workday. If the manager you need to move your direct report to is not available, it likely means they do not have a “supervisory organization” created. Even if their management level shows “Manager” a supervisory organization is needed in Workday for a team member to have a direct report. Supervisory organizations should have a name unique to the team they are managing (e.g. Commercial Sales - EMEA, Content Marketing (John Smith), Backend Engineering - Ruby). Please reach out to #people-connect with the name of the team member who needs the supervisory organization set up, the unique name, and the effective date of the supervisory organization. We can gladly help set it up in Workday.
Note for Sales Managers: If team members are not moved under the correct sales manager in Workday, credits will not be rolled-up to the correct manager for sales commissions. See additional promotion and transfer considerations for commissionable roles here.
Process for EBA to update senior leadership:
people-connect@gitlab.com requesting the changes to be made in Workday and provide an effective date.Job Title Specialty change requests, managers will reach out to the People Connect Team to have a team members Speciality updated in Workday.
Job Speciality has been added to the respective departments Handbook page (example: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/development/enablement/data_stores/search/) or if the People Connect Team members are tagged in a respective issue to have it added. If unclear, reach out to the respective People Business PartnerJob Speciality change and a manager change, the People Connect Team will be notified in the internal Transition Tracker spreadsheet tracker (using the people-connect@gitlab.com alias) and the People Connect Team members will create an associated Career Mobility Issue with the Slack Command list and track associated tasks for the previous and new manager. Tag or mention the aligned People Business Partner in the Career Mobility Issue.If you are interested in applying for an open role, please do so through Greenhouse or the internal job board, link found on the #new-vacancies Slack channel.
Please understand the following eligibility guidelines that need to be met to be able to proceed with your application:
Please note that internal applicants are required to speak with their current manager or People Business Partner prior to application submission. An official application is signaled by a team member applying to the open role or reaching out to the talent acquisition team. Informal conversations about the role do not require a team member to inform their manager. If you have concerns about communicating your interest in an internal role to your manager, please reach out to your People Business Partner.
For more information please visit our Internal Hiring Process handbook page.
#team-member-updates Slack Channel and begin any additional onboarding or offboarding necessary. Before the new manager makes the transfer announcement they must confirm with the team members current manager that the current team has been informed about the team members new position and transfer.If the team member is staying in the current Job Family, but changing their Specialty or Department (ex: moving from Plan to Secure or moving from Development to Infrastructure), the above steps will be followed. The recruitment procedure might be shortened if the requirements for the role are the same. At a minimum we ask that the hiring manager interview the team member.
If selected for the role, a Letter of Adjustment will be sent by the People Connect Team outlining the changes to department and specialty for the People Connect team to process in Workday. If the current manager needs to backfill the role, they should reach out to the Finance Partner.
If you are interested in another position within your department and the manager is also your manager you must do the following:
#new-vacancies channel so that everyone has the opportunity to apply and be considered.#team-member-updates Slack channel and begin any additional onboarding or offboarding necessary.If a GitLab team member is chosen for a new role, the managers should agree on a reasonable and speedy transfer plan. Up to 4 weeks is usually a reasonable period, but good judgment should be used on completing the transfer in a way that is in the best interest of the company, impacted people, and projects.
The agreed upon transfer date should be reflected in the offer letter in Greenhouse to ensure transfer date alignment between current manager, new manager, and transferring team member. This is essential to ensure that both teams are able to plan and be set up for success. It is important to note that it is typically the former team of the team member that shuffles to ensure workload of the departing team member is covered while a backfill is hired. This is to ensure a smooth and speedy transfer and a positive team member experience. When aligning on a start date, please also consider payroll alignment when selecting a start date.
Delaying transfers should be avoided to ensure a good team member experience for the transferring individual, however, if due to extenuating circumstances a transfer date needs to be pushed out, both managers need to agree on a new transfer date to communicate to the team member.
All transfers should eventually be initiated by team members.
#new-vacancies Slack channel to attract all potentially interested candidates.If a team member sees a vacancy posted that is the next level up within their job family (for example an Intermediate Frontend Engineer sees a vacancy for an Senior Frontend Engineer), the team member should have a conversation with their manager about exploring that opportunity.
It is the manager’s responsibility to be honest with the team member about their performance as it relates to their promotion readiness. If the manager agrees that the team member is ready, then they will follow the cyclical promotion calibration process. If they do not think the team member is ready for the promotion, they should walk through their career development document, as well as work on a promotion plan with the team member. The manager should be clear that the team member is not ready for the promotion at this time and what they need to work on. If the team member would still like to submit an application for the role after the conversation with their manager, they can apply and go through the same interview process as external candidates. The recruiter will confirm with the manager that the promotion readiness conversation has taken place before the internal interview process starts.
If the role is in a completely different job family (within their own division or in a completely different division, for example, if a Product Designer is interested in a Product Manager role), the team member must submit an application via the posting on GitLab’s internal job board on Greenhouse.
After the team member applies, the recruiter will reach out to the team member to connect regarding compensation for the role. In some cases, the compensation may be lower than the current one. Once the team member understands and agrees with the compensation for the new role, they can continue the process. Internal and external candidates will follow the same process with the exception of the full screening call (which will instead be a short conversation to discuss compensation, as mentioned above). However, if the internal applicant will be staying in the same division and the executive level interview is a part of the process, the executive may choose to skip their interview. All interview feedback and notes will be captured in the internal team member’s Greenhouse profile, which will be automatically hidden from the team member. After interviews are completed, internal “reference checks” will be completed with the applicant’s current manager by the new hiring manager. It is recommended that team members inform their manager of their desire to move internally and their career aspirations. Your manager should not hear about your new opportunity from the new hiring manager; it should come from the team member prior to the new hiring manager checking in for references with the current manager.
If you are unsure of the role, set up a coffee chat with the hiring manager to introduce yourself. Express your interest in the role and your desire to learn more about the vacancy requirements and skills needed. If after that conversation you do not feel that you are qualified or comfortable making the move, ask the hiring manager to provide guidance on what you can do to develop yourself so you will be ready for the next opportunity. It may also be possible to set up an internship for learning with the hiring manager.
While the Career Mobility Issue Issue aims to kick off the logistics of switching roles, the guidelines below are meant to guide the communication of internal promotions and transitions to ensure consistency and alignment from all parties involved.
new manager should post the announcement in the #team-member-updates Slack channel. This should ideally happen (timezone permitting) on the same day that the candidate signs their Letter of Adjustment.current manager can proceed with making this announcement in other relevant team-specific channels.NOTE: Although the Total Rewards and People Connect Team may have visibility into promotions or transfers due to the administration of updating information as part of their roles, they should not communicate with the team member about their promotion/transfer until an announcement has been made._
Company priorities can change and occasionally team members may be asked to transfer to high priority initiatives or projects within other teams. While team alignment changes can occur in all areas of the business, they occur most frequently in R&D (Product and Engineering divisions), which is why most of the documentation below is R&D-centric.
There are several types of Team Alignment Changes, including Global Prioritization changes, and Engineering Allocations, all of which are ways to ensure the organization is prioritizing and delivering effectively.
The different types of group alignment changes vary in length, purpose, DRI, and overall change impact.
The core Team Alignment Change Principles are: Communication, Collaboration, and Compliance.
For all changes, early and ongoing communication with impacted team members and their respective managers is key to ensuring group alignment changes are successful. Managers should be able to clearly articulate the business need and benefits from the change, as well as position team focus and roadmap that gives affected teams an understanding of how their future contributions will benefit GitLab.
Helpful artifacts can include:
Close cross-functional collaboration between Product and Engineering teams are critical in ensuring team member alignment changes are successful. Both groups should have a full understanding of the purpose, timeline, and actions stemming from the alignment change that they can clearly articulate to their teams and stakeholders to support the change management process. Involving the People Group and Finance (if there is budgetary impact) is also essential in ensuring a smooth transition and overall process.
Consideration should be given to impacts on product category maturity commitments for teams with team members that are moving to new groups. When possible, change should respect the Product Development Timeline to allow impacted teams to complete existing work and ensure smooth and efficient transitions.
The Team Alignment Change process below serves to ensure that DRIs are consulting with their aligned People Business Partner (PBP) at appropriate touch points during the team alignment process. The PBP can help determine whether additional involvement from Legal and/or People Operations team is necessary. Depending on the team alignment change type, Letters of Adjustment may be a necessary part of ensuring compliance during team member alignment changes. The PBP can help determine if additional steps like these are or are not necessary, which is why it is essential that they are looped in early.
Regardless of the change type, the following steps should always be followed to ensure appropriate parties are aware of changes. Engaging your PBP early in the dicussion related to organizational design will ensure you have a thorough strategy in place for the change. Your PBP can also connect relevant information from across the business where appropriate.
Frontend Engineer changed to Backend Engineer)We have process outlined for our various Global Prioritization team member alignment changes outlined in addition to Engineering Allocations on the Product Processes page.
Realignments are used when a permanent assignment to a team is required to resolve ongoing challenges. This has the highest impact to team members and should be considered if other options cannot achieve the desired goal. While the processes that only apply to R&D are listed in the Product Processes page, the Realignment process is outlined below as it could be applied to other departments and divisions at GitLab.
The process below outlines the process for Realignments specifically:
Team Alignment Change Process steps above are followed.Vacancies will be posted internally using the Greenhouse internal job board for at least 3 business days. If a role is not posted internally there must be a business case documented in the Workday documents of the team member who received the new role. See Department Transfers for additional details.
More details can be found in the Letter of Adjustment section.
A Career Mobility Issue is created when the one of the following criteria is met:
When a career mobility may not be needed (but can be requested):
The People Connect team will be notified of the pending migration of a team member via @ mention in the Promotion/Transfer Tracker. The People Connect Team member currently in the assignment rotation will be assigned to the migration for support.
The Career Mobility Issue will then be created by the People Connect Team member assigned by using the automated Slack command three days prior to the effective date to allow for the managers to start preparing for the team member's transition.
Important things to ensure:
Actions by both the current and new managers are required to set the team member up for success:
The team member going through this transition and assigned to their Career Mobility issue have a set of tasks to complete. An important one is to create a retrospective thread within their Career Mobility issue, so that they and their respective previous and current managers can discuss any questions, comments, and proposals. Retrospectives are used in many ways at GitLab, such as which are used after GitLab product releases and describing the Product retrospective workflow. For the Career Mobility issue, simply comment in the issue, starting a thread titled Retro thread or Retrospective. Please feel free to ping your assigned People Connect Team member in your issue if you have any questions.
This section describes the steps required for promoting or transferring employees with a Sales Commission Plan. When a promotion or transfer occurs, it is important for Sales Managers to follow specific steps to ensure a smooth employee experience during the transition. The Sales Operations, Sales Finance, and the Commissions team need to be informed so the necessary systems can be updated and the team member can receive a new compensation plan.
Note These steps are in addition to all other steps required for promotions and transfers in partnership with the People team.
There are several situations at GitLab that could lead to team members changing managers, including promotions, lateral transfers, company restructuring, manager resignation, etc. The process of building a new relationship with a new manager can be uncertain at times, but there are resources to help this transition process go smoothly:
When a new team member moves to your team, in addition to the items above in "Transitioning To A New Manager", there are some additional things to consider for the new manager.
confidential handover for any confidential topics between the previous and new manager (separate from the 1-1-1 with the previous manager, new manager, and team manager).confidential handover periodically (perhaps 2 weeks, 4 weeks and 6 weeks after transition). This will allow not only initial questions and considerations to come up, but also new ones as they arise.confidential handover.During fiscal year planning, Sales Strategy and Analytics work closely with Sales Management to assign values (full quota) to all the different Sales Territories. When a new sales employee joins, their ASM assigns them a territory (at which point there is a pre-determined value), and Sales Commissions applies a ramp schedule based on the employee's start date and role to arrive at their carried quota. ↩