Development Analytics Group

Common Links

Category	Handle
GitLab Group Handle	@gl-dx/development-analytics
Slack Channel	#g_development_analytics
Slack Handle	@dx-development-analytics
Team Boards	Team Issues Board, Team Epics Board, Support Requests
Issue Tracker	tracker
Team Repositories	development-analytics

Mission

Our mission is to enhance developer efficiency by delivering actionable insights, optimizing pipeline performance, and building scalable productivity tools that measurably improve the software development lifecycle.

Vision

We envision a future where GitLab’s development workflows are seamless, insightful, and empowered by data. The Development Analytics team will:

• Establish GitLab as the industry benchmark for measurable developer productivity
• Improve cycle time to industry-leading standards through tooling and practices
• Create intuitive, powerful analytics dashboards that drive informed development decisions
• Deploy AI-powered systems that optimize pipeline performance and resource utilization

Team members

Name	Role
Abhinaba Ghosh	Engineering Manager, Test Platform, Development Analytics
Andrejs Cunskis	Senior Software Engineer in Test, Development Analytics
Dan Davison	Staff Software Engineer in Test, Development Analytics
David Dieulivol	Senior Backend Engineer, Development Analytics
Ievgen Chernikov	Senior Software Engineer in Test, Development Analytics
Pranshu Sharma	Intermediate Backend Engineer, Development Analytics
Lohit Peesapati	Intermediate Backend Engineer, Development Analytics

Core Responsibilities

flowchart LR
    DA[Development Analytics Team]

    DA --> MRCT[MR Cycle Time Improvement]
    DA --> Tools[Tooling Maintenance]

    MRCT --> Analytics[Analytics & Observability]
    MRCT --> ExecTime[Pipeline Execution Time Optimization]
    MRCT --> ReviewEng[Review Engagement Enhancement]
    MRCT --> PipeStab[Pipeline Stability Assurance]

    Tools --> Triage[Triage Ops]
    Tools --> Roulette[GitLab Roulette]
    Tools --> Danger[Dangerfiles]
    Tools --> EPInfra[Engineering Productivity Infrastructure]
    Tools --> CNG[CLI for Cloud Native GitLab deployment]

    click Triage "https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/quality/triage-ops"
    click Roulette "https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-roulette"
    click Danger "https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/ruby/gems/gitlab-dangerfiles"
    click EPInfra "https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/quality/engineering-productivity-infrastructure"
    click Analytics "https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/16185"
    click ExecTime "https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/15989"
    click ReviewEng "https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/16028"
    click PipeStab "https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/16186"
    click MRCT "https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/16026"
    click CNG "https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/tree/master/qa/gems/gitlab-cng"

Roadmap

As part of our commitment to aligning with GitLab’s company goals, our team conducts a thorough review of company-level Roadmap and Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) at the beginning of each quarter. This process ensures that our efforts are strategically focused on delivering high-impact results that contribute to the broader organizational objectives. View the Development Analytics Roadmap for FY26 for detailed insights and upcoming priorities

Dashboards

Pipeline Duration Analytics

• Pipeline Duration Analytics
• Job Execution Analytics
• Pipeline Tier Analysis
• Long-Running Test Analysis

Pipeline Stability Analytics

• Main Branch Incident Analytics
• E2E Test Analytics

Note: Access to these dashboards requires appropriate permissions. Contact team leads for access requests.

How we work

Philosophy

• We prioritize asynchronous communication and a handbook-first approach, in line with GitLab’s all-remote, timezone-distributed structure.
• We emphasize the Maker’s Schedule, focusing on productive, uninterrupted work.
• Most critical recurring meetings are scheduled on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
• We dedicate 3–4 hours weekly for focused learning and innovation. This protected time enables the team to explore emerging technologies, conduct proof-of-concepts, and stay current with industry trends. Meeting requests during these blocks require advance notice.
• All meeting agendas can be found in the Team Shared Drive as well as in the meeting invite.

Meetings/Events

Event	Cadence	Agenda
End-of-Week progress update	Once a week (Wednesday)	Summarize status, progress, ETA, and areas needing support in the weekly update in issues and Epics. We leverage epic-issue-summaries bot for automated status checks
Team meeting	Twice a month on Tuesday 4:00 pm UTC	Agenda
Monthly Social Time	Monthly on last Thursday 4:00 pm UTC	No agenda, fun gathering. Choose one of the slots based on your timezone alignment. Read Virtual team building
Quarterly Business Report	Quarterly	Contribute to team’s success, learnings, innovations and improvement opportunities for each business quarter
1:1 with Engineering Manager	Weekly	Discuss development goals (see the 1:1 guidelines)
Team member’s coffee chats	Once/twice a month	Optional meetings for team members to regularly connect

Yearly Roadmap Planning

• Each financial year, we create a roadmap to ensure visibility and alignment.
• We conduct an intensive month-long exercise (usually in Q4) to gather input from stakeholders.
• DRIs take the lead drafting the roadmap using the roadmap prep-work template).
• Once the roadmap is approved, during our bi‑weekly team meetings, we review progress, address blockers, and gather feedback on the planned roadmap work.

Iterations

Once the yearly roadmap is defined, we structure our work using GitLab Iterations within a twice-a-month iteration model. This approach ensures consistent progress tracking, clear priorities, and iterative improvements. Here are our current iteration board and previous iterations for reference. As a team, we make sure:

1. Each issue is assigned to a Development Analytics Iteration.
2. Issues that are not worked on within the iteration automatically roll over to the next iteration.
3. In every twice-a-month team meeting, we review the iteration boards and track velocity using burndown charts.

Internal Rotation & Support Requests

Internal Rotation

We use an internal rotation for support requests and other team maintenance tasks. This frees up time for other Engineers in the team to work on planned work.

Support Requests

• If one finds a bug, needs assistance, or identifies an improvement opportunity then raise support requests using the ~"group::Development Analytics" and ~"development-analytics::support-request" labels. If the issue is urgent, escalate to the designated Slack channel - #g_development_analytics.
• If a request first comes through Slack, either the requester or a group::Development Analytics member should open an issue with the correct labels to ensure proper tracking and triage.
• The team reviews the support request board and prioritizes accordingly. Generally, the team reserves ~20% of weekly time for support tasks, though this may vary based on current priorities.

Tools/Repository Maintenance

• Team does not automatically watch every new issue created in each group-owned repository—use the group labels or escalate in Slack to ensure visibility.
• We highly promote self-served Merge Requests. If one already identified a fix or improvement, we request opening an MR for faster turnaround. The ~group::development analytics maintainers will review and merge as appropriate.
• Feature work and bug fixes follow the team’s current priorities.
• Find the version management rituals for ~group::development analytics owned repositories:

Repository	Release Process
gitlab-roulette	Version updates are not scheduled on a set cadence. A release can be cut whenever a version-update MR is submitted.
gitlab-dangerfiles	Same as above—no regular cadence; release triggered by a version-update MR.
triage-ops	A new release is initiated after merging a new commit into master.
engineering-productivity-infrastructure	Dependency update MRs are generated by Renovate bot.

Automated Label Migration

For details on label migration, see the Handbook entry for creating label migration triage policy with GitLab Duo Workflow.