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.
We collaborate on section level items here. 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.
Dedicated function channel. Please use this channel to ask questions about features or ways of using the Dedicated product. Dedicated group will use this channel to make announcements relevant to wider groups
Dedicated Switchboard team channel. Used to discuss topics that affect Switchboard team only. For broader engineering discussions please use #g_dedicated-team
Dedicated Environment Automation team channel. Used to discuss topics that affect Switchboard team only. For broader engineering discussions please use #g_dedicated-team
We use project specific channels to keep make it easier to follow specific topics. Channel names follow this format.
The SaaS Platforms group is gradually directing requests for help to the #saas-platforms-help Slack channel.
This channel can be used if it is unclear which Infrastructure team the question should be directed to.
For more information, refer to the landing page for getting assistance.
The #saas-platforms-help channel is monitored by SaaS Platforms Engineering Managers and Staff+ engineers who triage any inbound requests. When triaging this channel, one should locate the team who can best answer this question and instruct the requestor to contact that team using the team’s preferred contact method. When the requestor is connected to the right team, add a green check emoji to the message. Finally, if needed, update the getting assistance] page with any changes.
Meetings
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.
Sr. Director of Infrastructure Marin Jankovski, likes to meet with new team members that join the organization. Marin sets up informal 1:1 coffee chats a few times a month with newer team members to get to know one another and see how they are doing. This process is organized by his EBA who will reach out to team members once he has the availability to meet. As this is a large team, it may take a while to get through everyone.
If someone needs to meet with Marin sooner than when the coffee chat is scheduled, you can reach out to his EBA Liki Simonot to set something up.
Grand Review
The Engineering Leads for each Stage, along with their Product Managers, hold weekly progress reviews to assess their groups’ progress, share project updates, resolve blockers, and celebrate wins. Additionally, the Director of Product and the Senior Director of Infrastructure Platforms conduct a higher-level leadership review, where they go over summaries from these group-level meetings.
Weekly Schedule
Wednesday: each Epic DRI updates the status section of their epics with the progress. It is important to surface:
risks and blockers impacting the project
projects that are completed, including a closing summary highlight. These epics will be closed during the Grand Reviews
Data Access: run by the Data Access Acting Sr. EM and the Group PM
Tenant Scale: run by the Tenant Scale Sr. EM and Group PM
Production Engineering: run by the Production Engineering Sr. EM and Group PM
Software Delivery: run by the Software Delivery Acting Sr. EM and Group PM
Developer Experience: run by the Developer Experience Director and a rotation of Product Managers
Dedicated: run by the Dedicated Sr. EM and a rotation of of Product Managers
Friday: Leadership Review, run by the Sr. Director of Infrastructure Platforms and the Director of Product Infrastructure Platforms. Review the group-level summaries added as threads in the Infrastructure Platforms Top Level epic, then conduct a deep dive into one specific group to ensure comprehensive project coverage.
Friday: Group level and the leadership level reviews are released together in #infrastructure_platforms
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
Infrastructure Platforms Leads Demo
The Infrastructure Platforms Leads Demo is an opportunity for sync discussions between Staff+ IC across the Infrastructure Platforms Group to highlight current ongoing efforts underway in the teams they support.
All team members are welcome to join the call, but the emphasis is on Staff+ ICs to present and discuss the work they’re focused on, the problems they’re experiencing, and solutions they’re considering.
While the intention is for the call to be made public on GitLab Unfiltered, the default is for it to be published as private.
At the end of the call, a quick vote is held between the attendees and if all agree that the content is #SAFE, it can be published as public.
These issues are raised in the request for help issue tracker and are automatically assigned to the Engineering Manager of the relevant SaaS Platforms team.
The Engineering Manager is expected to:
Confirm that the question is not a duplicate and that the answer to the question is not already discoverable in the handbook or the tracker itself.
Confirm the urgency of the request.
Respond to the help request or assign to an engineer to help with the request.
Slack to GitLab Issue Tracker Integration
In an effort to enhance the tracking and resolution of requests directed to the Infrastructure team, we are evaluating a bot that converts Slack messages in #infrastructure_lounge channel into GitLab issues.
Workflow Overview
Acknowledgement: An agent responds with the acknowledged_emoji (👀 in our case) to acknowledge a Slack message in the Infrastructure Lounge channel.
Issue Creation: The Slack bot then creates an issue with the acknowledging agent assigned to it.
Thread Attachment: The Slack thread corresponding to the message is also posted on the created GitLab issue.
Label Assignment: Agents can further categorize issues by adding label emojis (ops, foundations, scalability-observability or scalability-practices) in the Slack message. This action automatically assigns the issue to the respective team: Ops, Foundations, Scalability-Observability or Scalability-Practices.
Issue Closure: Agents/Requester can close the issue when resolved by adding any of the resolved_emojis (green-circle-check,white_check_markor checkedin our case)
Configuration
Agents responsible for handling these issues are defined in a JSON file, which serves as a CI/CD variable. Currently, this file contains a static list of all members of the infrastructure department.
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
We use objective and key results to set goals in alignment with OKRs at GitLab.
Our OKR process is shared between all teams in Saas Platforms.
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.
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:
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?”
Objectives
The description for an Objective should have the following format:
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 Platforms 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:
