Developer Experience

Developer Experience is a newly formed group, born from the strategic merger of the Engineering Productivity team and the Test Platform sub-department. This exciting combination allows us to take a holistic approach to delivering cutting-edge Platform capabilities.

Mission

Our mission is to empower developers to focus on innovation, build, and deliver high-quality products to our customers. We aim to achieve this through:

  1. State-of-the-art developer tooling.
  2. Robust and reliable test infrastructure.
  3. Data-driven analysis for informed decision-making.
  4. Streamlined release and test governance to ensure consistency, compliance, and quality across the development lifecycle.
  5. Comprehensive performance validation.

Team Structure

Infrastructure Platforms Department structure is documented here.

OKRs

TODO

Weights

We use Fibonacci Series for weights and limit the highest number to 8. The definitions are as below:

Weight Description
1 - Trivial Simple and quick changes (e.g. typo fix, test tag update, trivial documentation additions)
2 - Small Straight forward changes, no underlying dependencies needed. (e.g. new test that has existing factories or page objects)
3 - Medium Well understood changes with a few dependencies. Few surprises can be expected. (e.g. new test that needs to have new factories or page object / page components)
5 - Large A task that will require some investigation and research, in addition to the above weights (e.g. Tests that need framework level changes which can impact other parts of the test suite)
8 - X-large A very large task that will require much investigation and research. Pushing initiative level
13 or more Please break the work down further, we do not use weights higher than 8.

Developer Experience group structure

Developer Experience group

Development Analytics

Developer Tooling

Feature Readiness

Performance Enablement

Test Governance

Team Members

Management team

Name Role
Vincy WilsonVincy Wilson Director, Test Platform
Abhinaba GhoshAbhinaba Ghosh Engineering Manager, Test Platform, Development Analytics
Ksenia KolpakovaKsenia Kolpakova Engineering Manager, Test Platform, Test Engineering
Kassandra SvobodaKassandra Svoboda Manager, Quality Engineering, Core Platform & SaaS Platform
Mohga GameaMohga Gamea Manager, Quality Engineering

Individual contributors

The following people are members of the Development Analytics group:

Name Role
Abhinaba GhoshAbhinaba Ghosh Engineering Manager, Test Platform, Development Analytics
Andrejs CunskisAndrejs Cunskis Senior Software Engineer in Test, Development Analytics
Dan DavisonDan Davison Staff Software Engineer in Test, Development Analytics
David DieulivolDavid Dieulivol Senior Backend Engineer, Development Analytics
Ievgen ChernikovIevgen Chernikov Senior Software Engineer in Test, Development Analytics
Jennifer LiJennifer Li Senior Backend Engineer, Development Analytics
Lohit PeesapatiLohit Peesapati Intermediate Backend Engineer, Development Analytics

The following people are members of the Developer Tooling group:

Name Role
Vincy WilsonVincy Wilson Director, Test Platform
Abhinaba GhoshAbhinaba Ghosh Engineering Manager, Test Platform, Development Analytics
Ksenia KolpakovaKsenia Kolpakova Engineering Manager, Test Platform, Test Engineering
Kassandra SvobodaKassandra Svoboda Manager, Quality Engineering, Core Platform & SaaS Platform
Mohga GameaMohga Gamea Manager, Quality Engineering

The following people are members of the Feature Readiness group:

Name Role
Kassandra SvobodaKassandra Svoboda Manager, Quality Engineering, Core Platform & SaaS Platform
Andy HohennerAndy Hohenner Senior Software Engineer in Test, SaaS Platforms:US Public Sector Services
Brittany WilkersonBrittany Wilkerson Senior Software Engineer in Test, Dedicated:Environment Automation
Jim BaumgardnerJim Baumgardner Software Engineer in Test, SaaS Platforms:US Public Sector Services
John McDonnellJohn McDonnell Senior Software Engineer in Test, Systems:Gitaly
Nivetha PrabakaranNivetha Prabakaran Software Engineer in Test, Dev:Manage
Richard ChongRichard Chong Senior Software Engineer in Test, Test Engineering, Fulfillment section
Sanad LiaquatSanad Liaquat Staff Software Engineer in Test, Test and Tools Infrastructure
Sofia VistasSofia Vistas Senior Software Engineer in Test, Test and Tools Infrastructure
Vishal PatelVishal Patel Software Engineer in Test, Core Platform:Systems

The following people are members of the Performance Enablement group:

Name Role
Kassandra SvobodaKassandra Svoboda Manager, Quality Engineering, Core Platform & SaaS Platform
Andy HohennerAndy Hohenner Senior Software Engineer in Test, SaaS Platforms:US Public Sector Services
Brittany WilkersonBrittany Wilkerson Senior Software Engineer in Test, Dedicated:Environment Automation
Jim BaumgardnerJim Baumgardner Software Engineer in Test, SaaS Platforms:US Public Sector Services
John McDonnellJohn McDonnell Senior Software Engineer in Test, Systems:Gitaly
Nivetha PrabakaranNivetha Prabakaran Software Engineer in Test, Dev:Manage
Richard ChongRichard Chong Senior Software Engineer in Test, Test Engineering, Fulfillment section
Sanad LiaquatSanad Liaquat Staff Software Engineer in Test, Test and Tools Infrastructure
Sofia VistasSofia Vistas Senior Software Engineer in Test, Test and Tools Infrastructure
Vishal PatelVishal Patel Software Engineer in Test, Core Platform:Systems

The following people are members of the Test Governance group:

Name Role
Ksenia KolpakovaKsenia Kolpakova Engineering Manager, Test Platform, Test Engineering
Chloe LiuChloe Liu Staff Software Engineer in Test, Development Analytics
Désirée ChevalierDésirée Chevalier Senior Software Engineer in Test, Dev:Plan
Harsha MuralidharHarsha Muralidhar Senior Software Engineer in Test, Govern
Jay McCureJay McCure Senior Software Engineer in Test, Dev:Create
Joy RoodnickJoy Roodnick Software Engineer in Test, Test Engineering, Verify:Runner group, Fulfillment section
Tiffany ReaTiffany Rea Senior Software Engineer in Test, CI:Verify
Valerie BurtonValerie Burton Senior Software Engineer in Test, Test Engineering, Fulfillment section
Will MeekWill Meek Senior Software Engineer in Test, Secure

Bug Prioritization
This page describes the bug prioritization process performed by the quality engineering sub-department as part of the cross-functional prioritization process.
Debugging Failing Tests and Test Pipelines
Guidelines for investigating end-to-end test pipeline failures
Developer Experience Dashboards
This handbook page serves as a central repository for all our Developer Experience dashboard details
Developer Experience Onboarding
Guidelines for onboarding as a new Developer Experience Stage member
Developer Experience Project Management
Guidelines for project management for the Developer Experience Stage at GitLab
Developer Tooling team
The Developer Tooling team enables all GitLab contributors to efficiently deliver results for customers by providing stable and performant software development tools, such as the GitLab Development Kit.
Development Analytics Group
Development Analytics Group under Developer Experience Stage
End-to-end Pipeline Monitoring
Overview of our E2E monitoring tools and practices
Engineering Analytics Team
Engineering Analytics Team
Performance and Scalability
The Quality Department has a focus on measuring and improving the performance of GitLab, as well as creating and validating reference architectures that self-managed customers can rely on as performant configurations.
Performance Enablement
Performance Enablement team within Developer Experience sub-department
Pipeline Triage
Overview of GitLab's E2E Pipeline Triage processes
Quality Engineering Learning Resources
The Quality Engineering Sub-Department has compiled a list of learning resources for SET and QEM growth.
Risk Mapping
Developing a strategic approach to risk and mitigation planning.
Self-Managed Excellence
This page lists more details about Self-Managed Excellence initiatives
Test Coverage
The Test Platform Department has coverage to support testing particular scenarios.
Test Governance Group
Test Governance Group under Developer Experience Stage
Test Governance Tips and Tricks
This page lists a number of tips and tricks we have found useful in day to day end-to-end test level related tasks.
Test Platform On-call Rotation
The Test Platform Sub-Department has two on-call rotations: pipeline triage (SET-led) and incident management (QEM-led).
Test Platform Roadmap
Roadmap for the Test Platform Sub-Department at GitLab
Last modified February 5, 2025: Rename Quality/TP to Dev Ex (7aa0e635)