Lee Tickett - Fullstack Engineer, Developer Relations Engineering - README
About me
I’m Lee Tickett, a Fullstack Engineer in the Developer Relations Engineering team. I joined GitLab in October 2022 after being a customer, contributor, and core team member.
I live near London in Southend-on-Sea, UK. I typically work morning through mid-afternoon, break for family time, then work a little later in the evening.
Projects
You will mostly find me working in:
- The Contributor platform (Ruby/VueJS).
- The GitLab monolith (Ruby/VueJS).
- Triage-ops (Ruby).
How I work
- I move fast.
- I love to build POCs, fail fast, and iterate.
- I take a bias for action, have short toes, and a low level of shame when pursuing results.
- I love working in public, collaborating, bouncing ideas around, and being transparent.
- I work from my GitLab TODO queue, which I aim to keep around one day deep.
What helps me:
- Clear issues and merge requests.
- Documented processes and the ability to self-serve.
- Opportunities to learn and unblock myself.
- Data and empathy when disagreeing.
What slows me down:
- Red tape
- Inability to iterate
- Dependencies on others when I can’t self-serve
How to communicate
- Best: Issues and merge requests (gets in my TODO queue).
- Also fine: Discord/Slack, but I prefer public channels where others can chime in/learn.
- Async first: I’m happy to jump on a call when emotions run high, there’s a need for back-and-forth, or a fast resolution.
- Coffee chats: Open to anyone, anytime. Schedule what works for you.
Hobbies / coffee chat topics
- Retro gaming (arcades, pinball, NES, SNES, N64, PlayStation).
- Tech nostalgia (BBC computers, Acorns, Visual Basic/VBA).
- Taking things apart and tinkering (electronics) and DIY.
- My role, our product(s), and our community!
Strengths
- Problem-solving: I love a challenge and am rarely stumped.
- Context: I know the product, company, and community very well.
- Connections: I often know who to ask or where to look.
- Empathy: My journey from customer to team member helps me understand our customers and community.
Working to improve
- Creating focus time.
- Planning further ahead.
Tools I use
- VSCode with devcontainers.
- GitLab Duo AI (my rubber duck).
- GitLab TODOs.
Community
Our mission is that everyone can contribute. We’ve come far, but have a long way to go. Our community matters deeply to me.
When working with contributors, live our values and help them understand, adopt, and contribute back to the product.
Need help? I juggle many tasks and reactive work, but am always here to help. Add me to issues or merge requests, and I’ll do my best.
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