Inspired by GitLab

Which companies can be listed here?

Any company that has been inspired by GitLab’s culture and/or by any part of our handbook can be listed here.

Transparency is one of GitLab’s values, and so we encourage you and your company to read our handbook and use the parts that make sense to your business, or even adapt it to your context.

With that, we want to know what on GitLab’s culture or on GitLab’s handbook inspired you, and how are you and your company using it to the benefit your business?

To be listed in this page, open an issue with the following information:

Title: Add company XYZ on Inspired by GitLab handbook page / Update company XYX on Inspired by GitLab handbook page

Description: Tells us what exactly was the inspiration, with a link to the handbook page so that others can have a look, and maybe get inspired as well. Optionally, send us your company’s website URL so that we can link to it.

Label: handbook

Or, if you feel comfortable with making the change yourself, submit a merge request, and we will be happy to review and have it merged as soon as possible. Don’t forget to add the label ‘handbook’.

Companies that have been inspired by GitLab

In this section we list the companies that have been inspired by GitLab with the links to the handbook pages that inspired them.

1. Facebook
   • “In 2019, before the pandemic, tech company GitLab hired Darren Murph to be its head of remote, helping manage the employee experience for its entirely remote workforce. Since the pandemic, Murph has been advising other companies on designing successful remote working arrangements, including Facebook.”
2. Dropbox
   • “What GitLab-proven techniques can you apply to your own organizational transformation? We refined them into a 1-2-3 set of high-level practices applicable to both all-remote and (more likely) hybrid companies who seek to succeed in a work-from-home world.”
3. City of Boston
   • “Just watched your live stream about All-Remote and wanted to chime in. I’ve been stealing pages out of the GitLab handbook heavily for @CityOfBoston. Especially the pages on communication, meetings, and roles which are infinitely important in a remote setting.”
4. Remote
   • Remote handles international payroll, benefits, taxes, and compliance for businesses big and small. It was founded by a former GitLab team member and uses a public handbook.
5. BNP Paribas
   • “Thanks Flexjob and GitLab for your time! Learning how to work efficiently on [all-remote] was really inspiring. We’ve learned a lot from your daily practices.”
6. Upwork
   • “Skip the workacation and take the vacation! I totally +1 to GitLab’s Darren M.’s comment that committing to our team’s sanity starts with each of us creating boundaries, particularly in senior leadership. I have actively tried to publicize within my company to promote others to take time off, too.”
7. Almanac
   • “The Almanac team handbook is our company’s operating system: a central doc repository of the principles, structures, and systems we use to run the company.”
8. Tangram Visions
   • “In particular, our engineering team has placed GitLab at the core of our remote workflow, because it reinforces our values and perspectives around working well remotely.”
9. Fellow.app
   • “Documentation and a ‘single source of truth’ for remote teams is key.”
10. OpenAI
    • Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, discusses plans to consider a CEO Shadow program based on GitLab’s pioneering approach to the concept.
11. Doist
    • This all-remote company launched Twist, a team communications app. In a series of Remote Work Guides, Doist cites GitLab in sharing practices around all-remote hiring and management, as well as mastering asynchronous communication.
12. Joy Labs
    • This all-remote company is developing communication software, including Memo. GitLab’s intentional approach to informal communication was used in building Joy Labs’ company culture.
13. Veamly
    • Veamly is a remote-first software firm. CEO Emna G. was inspired GitLab’s documented approach to building company culture, and shared elements that she is implementing in a GitLab Unfiltered Pick Your Brain video.
14. ProxyCrawl
    • At ProxyCrawl we are a completely remote company with employees all around the world working from home, co-working spaces, coffee shops, parks, etc. All our products have been created by our remote team. We have faced many of the issues of a worldwide remote team and GitLab handbook has helped us and inspired us to be a greater team. Special mentions to communication and all-remote pages.
15. Hubstaff
    • “The open source GitLab handbook is why I’m a successful remote worker and leader after a 13 year career in education.”
16. Clearbit
    • “As the COVID headwinds continue to push back against a full reopening, now is a good time for CEOs to embrace remote work — and discover how it can make their teams even more effective.”
17. Tackle
    • “[The GitLab all-remote guide] is an amazing resource when you are working through building a remote company. We use it regularly at Tackle. Thanks GitLab for sharing your guide with the community.”
18. Gable
    • “Remote work thrives most when teams focus on async communication and that’s just what we do, guided by amazing examples from GitLab, Doist, and Buffer. Our team is not expected to answer emails or Slack chats immediately.”
19. Botmock
    • “[GitLab] literally wrote the manifesto on remote work; for this our team will be forever grateful.”
20. Aimtal
    • “All of this, especially THIS - ‘Remote isn’t the future of work; it’s the future of living.’ We’re adopting many of GitLab’s remote work practices and processes at Aimtal. Many thanks to their team for openly sharing their knowledge and insights!”
21. AsyncGo
    • “A company handbook that everyone edits together is such a superpower, and I’ve never seen anyone do it better than GitLab. It was the very first thing I brought to my next job because it is the foundation for so much other goodness.”
22. Vowel
    • “It’s amazing what GitLab, Buffer, and Remote have done for the rest of the world by open sourcing how they operate remotely. I am convinced that in 10 years, we’ll look back at these documents as a crucial step in the evolution of Remote Work.”
23. Mighty
    • “I’ve stolen this from GitLab, but I think you have to ensure a consistent experience where the people in an office aren’t treated specially and you provide a remote-first culture.”
24. Journal
    • “We couldn’t have created the persona without examples from @gitlab’s handbook.”
25. Aula
    • “I started out skeptical about remote work. My fears were vague, like ‘You can’t build a strong company culture if you don’t see each other.’ Now, having built a remote company for two years, I’m unlikely to work from an office ever again GitLab’s journey inspired our leap of faith to tear up our London office lease to embrace remote work.”
26. Spark’n
    • “Spending a lot of time processing GitLab’s rather amazing remote work manifesto/guidebook for use at Spark’n. Really gel with the 100% remote commit for the modern workplace. It’s very now and the future. 💯 Unreal @darrenmurph and team. 🙌 "
27. LogDNA
    • “Remote-first, remote-biased… inspired by GitLab and other leaders. It started with a great conversation with GitLab CMO Todd Barr who taught me about the remote-first approach and GitLab Remote Playbook. That helped reinforce how LogDNA creates support structures for remote work and grows its vibrant, values-driven culture.”
28. AvenueHQ
    • “[GitLab’s approach to] values-driven hiring reasonated with what we do at AvenueHQ. It was a real lightbulb moment hearing about how planned the ‘serendipity’ we experience in the office actually is. It made me feel [that] we can recreate that in a distributed environment!”
29. Axya
    • “Axya ❤️ GitLab’s remote culture! The GitLab platform is not the only thing we love about GitLab, but also their remote culture. As a remote-first SaaS company, Axya is heavily inspired by the likes of GitLab and Automattic.”
30. Assured Information Security
    • “As a predominantly on-premise organization, Assured Information Security is sitting on the shoulder of giants by adapting GitLab communication practices and using GitLab technology. The care and expertise is apparent in the GitLab company values, handbook, community, and product, which has allowed us to rapidly adopt a new way of doing business and trust we are on a proven path.”
31. Matter IP
    • “GitLab are real leaders in remote working, which is something essential to our business model but that we felt out of our depth on. The Remote Playbook has been a great resource for us to makes sure we approach this in a way that leads to success.”
32. OpenNebula
    • “Inspired by GitLab and its all-remote movement, we are adopting a fully distributed work policy to improve talent recruitment and retention, employee wellness, and long-term flexibility, adaptability, and scalability. We are starting a journey to build remote fluency in our organization. In the following months, we will be implementing new operational processes to help our people and organization embrace remote work and the future of living.
33. Yembo
    • “We are building our own handbook inspired by GitLab. Thank you to the entire GitLab team for open sourcing so much information.”
34. Synura
    • “Founded by a former GitLab employee, Synura is a video collaboration app that follows most GitLab remote work practices including a public handbook.
35. Gozynta
    • “We were inspired by GitLab to start Gozynta as a remote-first company in 2018. This model has given us the flexibility to build a great team spread across 5 different countries, and has permitted our founders to move to a new country themselves (something they never imagined being able to do before). We use GitLab internally to manage our development team, and keep coming back to the GitLab Handbook for additional inspiration on how to run our company better. Thanks GitLab!”

Do you know of other companies that were inspired by GitLab but are not listed here?

Let us know by opening an issue to include them in this page, with the company’s name and their website so that we can contact them and list their experience here as well, to inspire others. Don’t forget to add the label ‘handbook’.