For the avoidance of doubt, the benefits listed below in the General Benefits section are available to contractors and team members, unless otherwise stated. Other benefits are listed by countries that GitLab has established an entity or co-employer and therefore are applicable to team members in those countries only via our entity specific benefits. GitLab has also made provisions for Parental Leave which may apply to team members but this may vary depending on local country laws. If you are unsure please reach out to the Absence Management team.
For any questions relating to benefits, please reach out to Total Rewards.
Contractors of GitLab BV are eligible for the general benefits, but are not eligible for entity specific benefits. A contractor may bear the costs of their own health insurance, social security taxes, payroll administration, or tax details.
Our contractor agreements and employment contracts are all on the Contracts page.
GitLab will pay for the items you need to get your job done.
Equity Compensation is offered to most GitLab team members. We strongly believe in team member ownership in our Company. We are in business to create value for our shareholders and we want our team members to benefit from that shared success.
In the unfortunate event that a GitLab team member passes away, GitLab will provide a $20,000 lump sum to anyone of their choosing. This can be a spouse, partner, family member, friend, or charity.
GitLab offers resources related to Financial Wellness to support team members in their financial journey.
GitLab has a "Flexible PTO policy" time off policy per 25 consecutive calendar days off.
GitLab supports team members who wish to continue their education and growth within their professional career. GitLab team-members are eligible for a reimbursement of up to $10,000 USD per calendar year (January 1st - December 31st) depending on tenure, performance, company need for the learned skill, and available budget. A course/program is considered to be included in the calendar year in which the course/program is paid/reimbursed (which should also be the same calendar year in which it ends). If a course/program ends in December, team members have a grace period until the end of January to claim for Growth & Development reimbursements from the previous calendar year.
Budget estimations for the Growth & Development benefit are based on utilization rates from past years, adjusted for the size of the company. The budget is managed on a company-wide scale, not division-specific. For example, approving reimbursement for a team member in Engineering does not "take away" budget from other engineers. Eligibility is managed on an individual basis. Eligibility for this benefit is part of each GitLab team member's Total Rewards package.
The Growth and Development page covers information on the application process and the different types of expenses you can get reimbursed under this benefit.
GitLab Contribute is our annual GitLab team event where we get together to interact with one another and cultivate our community. Since our team is scattered all over the globe, we try to plan a different location each year. Contribute is an optional event, so team members should not feel pressured to attend. This year, Contribute will be hybrid-first, enabling team members to watch and participate from anywhere.
From our first Contribute in Serbia to our virtual event in 2020, team members from around the world have built friendships and experienced the values in person. For more information and compilations of our past events check out our previous Contributes (formerly called GitLab Summit).
This policy provides coverage for team members who travel domestic and internationally for business purposes. This policy will provide Emergency Medical and Life Insurance coverage should an emergency happen while you are traveling. In accompaniment, there is coverage for security evacuations, as well a travel assistance line which helps with pre-trip planning and finding contracted facilities worldwide.
GitLab offers benefits in relation to obtaining visas and work permits for eligible team members.
GitLab offers an Employee Assistance Program to all team members via Modern Health.
In light of our “Family First, Work Second” value, we’re looking to launch a new benefit in FY23 to assist team members with family care needs (child, adult and complex care). As part of this implementation, Total Rewards will run a Pilot Program starting in October 2022 and ending in December 2022 to test our platform of choice, Helpr.
Total Rewards will collaborate with the People Business Partners to select 10 team members to ensure that there is a diversity of particpants from different locations, with different care needs, so that we can adequately evaluate the success of the pilot program. Participants will be required to take a survey on their experience with the service.
If you are interested in participating in the Pilot Program or have any questions, please reach out to total-rewards@gitlab.com. Unfortunately, not all team members who request to particpate may be selected due to the limited space in the Pilot Program.
The following incentives are available for GitLab team members:
GitLab is an all-remote company; you are welcome to read our stories about how working remotely has changed our lives for the better.
You can find more details on the All Remote page of our handbook.
If you are already a GitLab employee and would like to share your story, simply add a remote_story: element to your entry in team.yml and it will appear
on that page.
In order to foster a sense of community and support fellow GitLab team members, if a team member is in need or experiencing a life disruption, they have the option of having a Meal Train started for them. A Meal Train is when a community comes together to support someone experiencing a difficult or disrupting event in their life who would benefit from having a meal provided to them during this time.
Examples of when someone may request a meal train (this list isn't exhaustive):
If you have any questions, please reach out to leaves@gitlab.com.
Team Members can refer to their entity-specific medical plans to understand the fertility and family planning benefits available to them, as applicable. Please contact total-rewards@gitlab.com should you have any questions.
GitLab plans to continue to iterate on fertility benefits as we evaluate and enhance our overall benefit plans. In a future state, GitLab aims to expand fertility and family planning services (including adoption support) in order to help our team members grow their families.
GitLab's paid Parental Leave is available for any active team member (regardless of gender) who becomes a parent through childbirth or adoption while working at GitLab. This benefit is available to all team members on their first day of work, as long as their child was born or newly adopted during their employment at GitLab.
GitLab team members are encouraged to decide for themselves how much time they'd like to take and how to take it, but the entire 16-week Parental Leave balance must be used prior to the child's first birthday or the first anniversary of the adoption. For many reasons, a team member may require more time off. Any GitLab team member can request additional unpaid leave for up to 4 weeks, and we are happy to address anyone with additional leave requests on a one-on-one basis.
The information in this section is specific to GitLab's 16-week paid Parental Leave. Different countries may provide team members with their own statutory Parental Leave (including maternity/paternity) benefits. Please review your country's statutory Parental Leave benefits for more information on how to apply and tenure requirements (if applicable). If you live in a country where a statutory Parental Leave benefit is available, you will be required to claim statutory Parental Leave pay (if eligible), and GitLab will supplement any gaps. When allowed by law GitLab's 16-week balance is per birth or adoption event per year and runs concurrently with these statutory benefits.
In some cases a team member may choose to begin their leave earlier. While we encourage you to begin your leave when your child arrives (to be able to capture as much time as possible with the newest addition to your family) if you would like to start your leave on a different date please notify leaves@gitlab.com; otherwise your Parental Leave will be administered according to the start date entered in PTO by Deel.
You don't have to take your Parental Leave in one continuous period, we encourage you to plan and arrange your Parental Leave in a way that suits you and your family's needs. You may split your Parental Leave dates as you see fit, so long as all time is used prior to the child's first birth or first anniversary of the adoption event. The Absence Management team will receive a notification every time you edit your Parental Leave dates. Make sure your leave is under the Parental Leave category, otherwise the Absence Management team won't get a notification.
A few things to note:
Some team members may feel comfortable sharing their news sooner than other team members. You can share your news with your Manager whenever you feel comfortable, but we recommend communicating your plan to your manager at least 2-3 months before your leave starts for workload planning purposes. In the meantime, familiarize yourself with the steps below and specific leave requirements in your country (if any).
To initiate your Parental Leave, submit your time off by selecting Parental Leave in PTO by Deel 30 days before your leave starts. We understand that Parental Leave dates may change, so you can edit your PTO by Deel at a later time if you need to adjust the dates of your Parental Leave. It's important that you submit a tentative date 30 days in advance, but some countries have their own reporting requirements. Please review your own [country's] (#entity-benefits) reporting requirements to ensure you are reporting your leave according to these regulations.
We realize that if you are going on adoptive parental leave, a 30 day notice period may not be possible. In these situation, you should notify your manager as soon as possible.
Your manager and the Absence Management team will be notified after you submit your leave. The Absence Management team will send you an e-mail within 48 hours (whenever possible) confirming that they've been notified of your Parental Leave dates, and provide you wtih additional follow-up items (if applicable).
You don't have to take your Parental Leave in one continuous period, we encourage you to plan and arrange your Parental Leave in a way that suits you and your family's needs. You may split your Parental Leave dates as you see fit, so long as it is completed prior to the child's first birth or first anniversary of the adoption event. The Absence Management team will receive a notification every time you edit your Parental Leave dates. Make sure your leave is under the Parental Leave category, otherwise the Absence Management team won't get a notification.
A few things to note:
Public Holiday in PTO by Deel and add a note indicating "rolling over holidays which occured while on parental leave".If you need to take more time off after taking 16 weeks of Parental Leave, you can utilize our Paid Time Off policy. This time should be discussed with your Manager prior to the start of your Parental leave, and you will need to return to work for at least 7 calendar days before PTO can begin.
Please submit the dates of your PTO in PTO by Deel by selecting Vacation.
Team member commission payments with less than 6 months of past performance will be calculated on a variable floor of 50%.
Team members with 6 months or more of past performance are paid (parental leave only) based on the 12 prior months of performance with a cap at 100% of plan. For example, if a team member 8 months in role attained 85% of plan, they would be compensated at the same rate while on leave, but a team member 12 months in role will be compensated based on their prior 12 months of performance.
On the day you return from leave and going forward, your commissions will be based on current performance only. The rate of commissions paid during your leave will be confirmed by the sales commissions team and communicated to the team member through the Absence Management team prior to your leave start date. If your country of employment has specific laws regarding the payout of commissions when on leave, those would supersede our policy.
Additionally, effective Q1 FY22, commissioned roles are eligible to receive quota relief during their parental leave if the team member has been with GitLab for eight months or longer. The team member will receive credit and commissions as specified in their existing Participant Schedule that occur prior to the start of the leave. After 60 continuous days of parental leave, quota relief will be applied to the team member on leave for the total duration of the leave up to a total of 4 months. The team member would receive an amended Participant Schedule upon return from leave. That amended participant schedule will include a prorated On Target Incentive based off the number of days that a team member is in seat for the fiscal year. For example, If coming back from leave at the beginning of a fiscal year, the On Target Incentive will not be prorated. Please see a reference slide here for an example of how the quota relief process and calculation works. For more information on quota relief and commissions on leave, please refer to the terms in the Sales Compensation Plan.
Effective FY24, team members on leave for 30 days or more will be eligible for Commissions to be paid for the first five weeks of non-parental leave at a 50% guarantee. After five weeks of non-parental leave, the team member would become ineligible for commissions. Any local requirements for commission payments on non-parental leave would supersede this policy.
Additionally, effective Q1 FY24, commissioned roles are eligible to receive quota relief if the team member has been with GitLab for eight months or longer. The team member will receive credit and commissions as specified in their existing Participant Schedule that occur prior to the start of the leave. After 60 continuous days of leave, quota relief will be applied to the team member on leave for the total duration of the leave up to a total of 3 months. The team member would receive an amended Participant Schedule upon return from leave. That amended participant schedule will include a prorated On Target Incentive based off the number of days that a team member is in seat for the fiscal year. For example, if coming back from leave at the beginning of a fiscal year the On Target Incentive will not be prorated. Please review this reference slide for an illustration of the quota relief and calculation process. For more information on quota relief and commissions on leave, please refer to the terms in the Sales Compensation Plan.
Sales management has discretion on how to cover a team member's territory while they are on leave. However, if another team member is assigned to cover business for someone on leave, they should be assigned the opportunity in SFDC but not the account. Team members covering opportunities will be compensated on the opportunities that they close in their name. Reassigning accounts may trigger quota changes.
For Solution Architects and Management and Customer Success Managers and Management, payment will be calculated for individuals using actual team performance while on leave. These roles will not be eligible for quota relief during parental leave.
For Sales roles with a utilization attainment, like the Professional Services Engineer, since the utilization attainment is based on delivering above 70% of available billable hours, we apply the baseline attainment linked to utilization attainment, 50%.
At the end of 90 continuous days of parental or medical leave, a one time payment of the 50% billable utilization attainment will be paid. Utilization payout during parental or medical leave is not based on prior individual performance, since projects identified for billable utilization are based on sales engagements and services attached, and not determined by individual performance.
On the day you return from leave, the utilization payout returns to the established utilization attainment ranges.
You are entitled to and need to comply with your local regulations. They override our policy.
A day before you return from Parental Leave, you'll receive a PTO by Deel Welcome Back message with buttons to confirm your return or to explore other options.
Confirm my return button will open the email client with a pre-loaded template "Confirming my return from Parental PTO".
Explore options button will also open the email client with a pre-loaded template "I have exceeded my 16 weeks and like to look into further options".It's important to acknowledge that returning to work after parental leave can be difficult. Even with smooth reentries, life and work interplay differently when one adds another member to their family. Everyone transitions differently, and the impact on an individual varies depending on role, as well as a litany of personal factors.
You can learn more about parental leave and how to apply in the Benefits section of the GitLab Handbook.
Your 4th Trimester is a 90-day coaching program to help parents transition back to work.
GitLab team members compiled tips in a four-part blog series, linked below, looking at an array of issues surrounding working remotely with children. These shed light on parental leave policies worldwide, provide an inside view of working at GitLab with a newborn, and highlight strategies for working remotely with older children.
Tips from GitLab team members are the greater community are below, as well as how each aligns with at least one of GitLab's values.
What has worked for me is to integrate GitLab into my life, and not the other way around. I set very clear boundaries in my calendar of when is work time and when is family time. Per GitLab's recommendation, my calendar is viewable by anyone and clearly has time for:
kids test prep,visual therapy for one,judo pick-upand other appointments I have outside of work. This prevents team members from scheduling over these instances.If someone does schedule over family time or personal time, I feel confident to decline, unless it is very urgent and I'm blocking it (I always suggest a new time first, before using family time for a meeting). I am also inclined to say that if folks keep scheduling outside of your work time, to make sure you respond back and highlight that, and check if you can find an alternative time that works for both of you. — Nadia V.
Nadia's recommendation leans on Transparency, as well as an important operating principle of Efficiency: Be respectful of others' time.
When I joined GitLab, it was great to see things in people's calendars like
baby time,homework with kids,date night, etc. Part of onboarding was coffee chats so I saw these “meetings” on calendars as I tried to schedule chats. It reinforced our family first operating principle, and also normalized these activities. It helped me understand that I could set up similar boundaries and not sacrifice bed time or something similar just to have an empty hour on my calendar. — Seth B.
Seth's recommendation ties to an operating principle of Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging : Family and friends first, work second.
The hardest part of coming back from parental leave has been getting caught up/reintegrating with the GitLab team while sleep deprived. I recommend taking to heart the
don't worryportion of GitLab's guide to paid time off, which states: "You don't need to worry about taking time off to go to the gym, take a nap, go grocery shopping, do household chores, help someone, take care of a loved one, etc. If you have urgent tasks, but something comes up or takes longer than expected, just ensure the rest of the team knows and someone can pick up the tasks (assuming you're able to communicate)." — Jonathan S.
Jonathan's recommendation adds a layer of nuance to Accepting Uncertainty, an operating principle of Results. It also touches on Give agency, an operating principle of Collaboration, which empowers team members to focus on what they think is most beneficial.
Take advantage of GitLab's bias towards asynchronous communication. A child's schedule shifts rapidly, and I've found it useful to structure my days around my son's routine rather than force him to operate on a rigid timeline. Being a part of a 100% remote team empowers team members to embrace work/life harmony in whatever way suits them. Moreover, it's liberating to be able to shift when and where I work depending on the needs of my family.
It's important to talk about family. For a company to sustain a culture that embraces parents and empathizes with the associated needs, these realities must be shared in the open and not allowed to become taboo. — Darren M.
Parents at GitLab are encouraged to join the #intheparenthood Slack channel to share tips, photos, and stories, and make a merge request to add contributions to this page.
Returning to work after parental leave can be jarring if you're attempting to jump immediately back to 100%. Not only has your life changed dramatically with the expansion of your family, but you're reintegrating into a working world that has continued to progress in your absence. Merely catching up with months of work is a challenge unto itself, even without a new family member.
To alleviate the stress associated with returning to work after parental leave, GitLab supports team members coming back at 50% capacity. Team members should discuss this option with their Manager (ideally prior to the start of the leave or a few weeks prior to returning from leave) and find a working schedule that works best for the team member and for their team. The general guideline (that can be approved by your Manager) is two to four weeks, but recognize that each reentry situation should be treated as a unique case to be discussed between the team member and their manager. The 50% figure should be viewed as a guide rather than an inflexible rule. Some team members may feel comfortable ramping more quickly, and that is OK.
This provides space for a team member to test out life adjustments and iterate further without feeling overwhelmed by a full workload. For instance, if a prearranged daycare solution turns out to be suboptimal, this 50% capacity window empowers a parent to iterate — to find a different solution with the air cover at work to put in the appropriate amount of research and care.
Parents at GitLab who are reentering work following parental leave are encouraged to read the Team Member Tool Kit and to reach out to team members who self-designate as a Parental Leave Reentry Buddy.
Managers of soon to be parents should check out this Parental Leave Manager Tool Kit for best practices in supporting your team members as they prepare for and return from Parental Leave.
If you're interested in learning about how other GitLab team members approach parenthood, take a look at the parenting resources wiki page and #intheparenthood on Slack.
For the Absence Management team:
When Team Members are affected by natural disasters such as fires, earthquakes, floods, etc…, GitLab has established a Team Member Relief Program to assist with financial hardship from these disasters or other emergencies. This program is managed in partnership with E4E Relief, a non-profit that helps businesses establish global disaster relief programs for their Team Members.
This program provides Team Members and their families with short-term, need-based assistance in times of extreme need. If you experience a difficult situation, please visit the GitLab Cares Portal to easily determine if you're eligible for program assistance and to apply for assistance.
GitLab started the fund with an initial contribution to support team members. Team Members may also choose to make donations to the fund as part of their annual giving and donation efforts. If you wish to make a donation, please visit the Portal and select 'Contribute to the Fund'. Donationas are tax-deductable (country-specific tax laws apply).