►
From YouTube: Career Development Conversations with Eric Johnson
Description
In this interview, Jacie Bandur and Samantha Lee on the Learning & Development Team interview Eric Johnson, CTO to learn more about having career conversations.
Learn more about career development at GitLab on our Career Development handbook page: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/learning-and-development/career-development/
There is also more information on the engineering career development handbook page: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/career-development/
A
Hi,
I'm
jc
bander
on
the
learning
and
development
team
at
gitlab
and
I'm
joined
by
eric
johnson,
get
lab
cto
and
samantha
lee
also
on
the
learning
and
development
team.
Today,
during
this
handbook
learning
session,
we're
going
to
be
talking
about
career
development.
So
eric.
Can
you
start
by
sharing
what
your
own
career
path
has
looked
like
to
date.
B
Sure
yeah,
so
I've,
I'm
a
startup
person.
Gitlab
is
my
fifth
startup.
So
I've
worked
for
four
previous
companies.
I
started.
I
have
a.
I
didn't,
get
the
four-year
compsci
degree
like
a
lot
of
engineers.
Did
I
got
a
philosophy
degree,
so
I
was
coding
on
my
own
kind
of
self-taught
but
got
into
the
technology
industry
and
started
entry-level
rock
bottom.
B
I
think
I
got
a
raise
there,
but
didn't
get
an
official
promotion,
and
that
was
just
about
two
years
in
that
company
a
startup
went
out
of
business
got
acquired.
Then
at
my
third
company
I
was
there
six
years.
I
started
as
I
took
it.
Actually
I
did
the
opposite.
I
took
a
downgrading
title
to
get
into
this
company.
B
I
think
a
little
over
a
year
ago,
so
over
five
companies
I
think
that's
seven
or
arguably
six
promotions,
or
so
so
it's
tricky
like.
I
always
encourage
people
to
reflect
that
in
your
linkedin
like
show
that
career
growth,
but
I've
gotten
feedback
from
recruiters
like
hey,
that's
a
little
bit
too
much.
You
actually
don't
want
to
appear
as
a
climber,
and
so
I
I
just
show
like
the
the
title
I
had
when
I
left
that
company
at
my
on
my
linkedin,
because
I
don't.
B
I
don't
consider
myself
a
career
climber
and
I
don't
want
to
accidentally
send
that
signal
to
anyone,
especially
if
I
were
to
be
looking
for
a
job
or
something
like
that.
So
it's
a
little
bit
a
little
bit
unique.
But
I've
been
very,
I
think,
career
focused
in
the
sense.
I
always
had
that
insecurity
to
want
to
like
make
up
for
the
fact
that
I
didn't
have
a
computer
science
degree
and
it
was
engineering.
B
So
I
felt
the
need
to
go
back
and
study
and
learn
books
to
make
up
for
that
and-
and
I
always
wanted
to
be
very
deliberate
about
my
career-
moves-
have
a
certain
like
minimum
length
tenure.
Even
if
I
was
unhappy
at
a
company
and
forced
myself
to
stay
and
figure
it
out,
because
I
didn't
appear
to
be
job
happening,
because
I
always
wanted
to
make
up
for
that
kind
of
lack
of
credentials.
Early
on
in
my
in
my
career.
C
Thanks-
and
I
think
that
that
that
last
piece
about
wanting
to
to
like
read
and
study
and
continue
to
learn
really
like
feeds
into
this
next
question,
so
I'd
love.
If
you
could
share
what
intentional
steps
you've
taken
throughout
your
career
to
get
where
you
are
today
and
then
maybe,
if
there's
a
course
or
an
experience
or
a
conference
that
had
a
big
development
on
your
career
that
had
a
big
impact
on
your
career
development.
If
you
could
share
that.
B
Results
was
the
most
important
thing
and
I
wanted
to
make
sure
I
was
I
was,
I
guess,
in
the
most
general
sense,
like
making
my
boss's
life
easier,
making
my
peers
working
lives
easier
and
the
externals
and
managerial
roles
making
the
working
lives
of
people.
That
reported
me
better.
You
know
creating
an
apolitical
environment,
for
example,
to
the
extent
that
can
be
achieved,
and
I
think
that's
you
know,
career
development
is
almost
this
meta
separate
thing
from
your
career
and
I
think
you
can
overdo
focusing
on
it.
B
It's
certainly
an
art
in
its
own
right.
You
want
to
make
sure
you're
not
leaving
anything
on
the
table
or
skipping
important
steps
and
there's
elements
where
you
need
to
know
when
to
advocate
for
yourself
and
that
can
be
uncomfortable
for
a
lot
of
people
for
the
most
part.
Doing
the
job
well
is
the
90
of
what
you
should
be
focused
on
and
if
you're
not
doing
that,
you
don't
have
a
lot.
You
don't
have
a
lot
of
hope
to
get
something
out
of
a
separate
career
development
set
of
of
exercises.
B
It's
my
personal
kind
of
view
and
at
the
same
time
I
think
we've
all
met
people
who
maybe
got
the
promotion
or
or
got
a
big
title
and
weren't
actually
really
effective
at
the
job.
And
that's
why
I
say
like
they're
they're
tightly
coupled
but
they're,
not
technically
the
same
thing
and
when
they
get
decoupled
either
way
either
you
can
do
the
job
and
you
get
passed
off
passed
over
for
emotion,
that's
bad,
or
if
you
get
the
promotion,
you
can't
actually
do
it.
That's
bad
as
well.
B
So
you
want
to
keep
those
two
things
as
tightly
coupled
as
you
possibly
can,
but
beyond
just
trying
to
get
results
and
and
trying
to
you
know,
have
a
relatively
lengthy
tenure
at
each
one
of
these
jobs.
I
mentioned.
I
felt
the
need
to
go
back
and
really
kind
of
like
when
you're
self-taught
at
anything
you
kind
of
have
holes
and
that's
something
that
organized
education
is
meant
to
to
smooth
you
out,
make
you
very
uniform.
B
So
an
example
like
that
in
computer
science
is
like
a
big
o,
notation
kind
of
a
formalized
way
to
express
the
time.
Complexity
of
algorithms.
That's
not
something
you're
going
to
independently
derive
if
you're
a
self-taught
programmer.
So
you
you
kind
of,
should
be
going
back
and
reading
some
robert
youth
books
and
whatnot
just
so.
You
can
kind
of
be
aware
of
those
things
and
and
hang
in
a
conversation
with
your
peers,
who
might
have
gotten
that
kind
of
formal,
formal
education.
B
So
I
did
things
like
that
to
kind
of
fill
in
the
the
formal
computer
science
stuff
and
I
think
a
lot
of
us
as
managers
are
kind
of,
like
I
say,
like
you
know,
raised
by
wolves
almost
like
self
self-taught,
there
isn't
a
lot
of
structure
or
teaching
that
goes
on
for
management
skills.
Even
if
you
get
like
an
mba,
that's
really
a
finance
degree.
B
But
I
think
it's
important
to
have
a
network
of
peers
inside
and
outside
the
company
you're.
Talking
to
I
give
that
we've
got
a
couple:
mentorship
programs
in
engineering,
seven,
ctos
and
plato
hq
that
you
can
take
advantage
of
it's
very
much
kind
of
peer-to-peer
learning
where
you
listen
to
other
people's
problems.
B
B
It
coincided
with
a
lot
of
life
stuff,
so
that
was
actually
the
first
time
I
was
working
remote.
This
is
very
much
an
on-premise
company
based
on
the
east
coast.
I
was
given
a
special
privilege
to
go
remote
and
it
was
a
chance
for
me
to
move
in
with
my
now
wife
and
and
follow
her
academic
career
around
the
country
and
get
exposed
from
my
work
and
stuff
like
that.
B
Once
you
go
into
engineering
management,
to
be
able
to
go
back
and
kind
of
learn
to
program
again
from
a
day-to-day
basis
and
learn
the
new
technologies
and
the
new,
the
new
stack
and
whatever
else
has
changed
about
it
and
that's
important
because
then
you're
managing
engineers
again,
and
you
want
to
make
sure
you
have
empathy
and
understanding
for
how
that
has
changed.
So
that
I
guess
was
it
wasn't
like
clearing
a
couple
hours
in
a
week
or
something
like
that.
That
was
a
very
deliberate
kind
of
career
decision
that
I
made.
B
It
was
one
of
the
best
things
I
ever
did
and
I
wonder
ahead
of
me:
I've
kind
of
gotten
back
into
that
purely
managerial
mode.
Since
then,
over
the
course
of
a
couple
companies-
and
I
wonder
like
if,
if
there's
time
or
when
it
will
be
the
right
time
to
maybe
do
that
again
because
it's
been
eight
years
or
so
since
I
was
like
you
know,
coding,
100
of
the
time
for
for
a
job.
C
That's
really
great
thanks
for
sharing
that.
It
almost
reminds
me
not
exactly
but
kind
of
like
the
internship
for
learning
program
that
we
have
at
get
lab,
which
I
haven't
done,
but
just
the
idea
of
of
learning
a
skill
by
working
directly
with
a
team
who
is
using
the
skill
that
you
want
to
learn
it.
It
makes
me
think
of
like
that
as
a
similar
opportunity.
B
Yeah,
that's
a
good
thing
and
I
encourage
people
to
look
into
that
because
we
are,
you
know,
I'm
a
startup
person,
so
I'm
I've
rather
worked
at
smaller
scale.
Companies
like
the
gitlab
I
joined,
we've
grown
it
10x
since
then,
but
one
of
the
bad
things
about
a
startup.
Despite
how
much
you
learn
is
there's
never
time
to
just
say:
oh
I'm
going
to
go
on
a
secondman
for
six
months
and
do
and
do
an
internship
or
something
like
that.
There's
so
much
work
to
be
done.
B
You
have
to
be
super
effective
in
your
role
and
usually
doing
a
couple
other
things
on
the
side
until
the
company
can
scale
one
of
the
nice
things
about
gitlab.
Getting
the
scale
we've
gotten
is
where
you
know,
there's
many
things
that
a
startup
skill
will
be
a
single
person.
We've
got
whole
teams
around
that
stuff,
which
means
we
should
be
able
to
support
those
kind
of
like
lateral
moves
or
temporary
moves
to
to
invest
in
ourselves
and
and
each
other
and
take
advantage
of
it.
B
It's
never
going
to
feel
like
it's
the
right
time
to
do
it
because
we're
all
super
busy,
but
your
former
team
or
the
team
you'll
return
to
will
get
by
and
I
think
you'll
you'll
rejoin.
That
team
with
a
whole
new
set
of
experiences
and
a
new
perspective
on
the
problems
being
solved
and
it'll
be
good
for
yourself
and
good
for
the
company.
C
B
Yeah
in
the
case
of
managers,
it
should
be
a
must-have
as
opposed
to
a
nice
tab
or
something
that
they
they
should
do,
or
they
can
do.
I
think
they
they
have
to
do
this
part
of
their
job
is
to
help
get
the
most
out
of
people,
and
that
includes
career
development.
There's
many
aspects
of
career
development,
self-improvement
that
don't
result
in
raises
or
promotions,
but
it
can
be
intrinsically
motivating,
and
so
I
don't
hand
move
over
that
stuff.
B
Not
everything
results
in
the
title
change,
but
we've
got
a
fair
amount
of
structure
around
this.
So
I
think
the
first
thing
managers
have
to
do
is
be
aware
of
what
they
are
in
the
position
of
representing
the
person
in
the
company
at
the
same
time,
so
there's
company
need
for
different
roles,
more
skills,
whatever
it
might
be,
and
and
then
they've
got
to
get
that
out
of
that
person
or
help
that
person
get
them
out
of
themselves.
B
You're
always
lining
up
the
company
need
with
the
individual
readiness,
and
if
one
of
those
things
isn't
there,
it's
really
not
the
time
to
do
any
sort
of
promotion.
You
can
force
it
and
that
sometimes
doesn't
end,
particularly
while
someone
loses
face
or
leaves
the
company
or
street
managed
out
or
something
like
that.
So
really
managers
need
to
make.
We
make
sure
they're
they're
creating
a
win-win
scenario.
B
Hopefully,
we've
got
all
the
skills
and
requirements
for
each
role
documented
in
the
handbook,
in
the
form
of
a
job
family,
including
like
performance
indicators
like
ideally
there's
a
lot
about
what
people
need
to
do
at
their
current
level
or
their
next
level
that
can
be
measured
and
and
and
charted
over
time.
In
the
ideal
sense,
not
everything
can
be
there's
plenty
of
like
open-ended
qualitative
things
we
have
to
be
good
at,
but
anything
that
can
be
measured
probably
should
be
because
it
just
makes
it
so
empirical
and
easy
to
focus
on.
B
B
But
once
you
go
beyond
senior
software
engineer
at
gitlab
that
you're
actively
working
to
make
the
rest
of
your
team
team
better.
In
fact,
that's
where
the
word
staff
comes
from
you're
the
senior
most
engineer
on
a
staff,
a
collection
of
people
and
you're
there
to
be
the
senior
most
technical
person
and
lead
technical
ideas
and
whatnot.
A
B
B
It's
important
to
be
kind
of,
like
generally
aware
of
your
surroundings
and
the
constraints
and
motivations
of
others,
I
think
making
sure
you
know
you
understand,
what's
documented
in
the
job
family,
what
your
expectations
are,
if
anything's
confusing
try
to
get
clarification
there,
including
like
do
an
mr
work,
work
handbook
first
and
propose
like
hey,
I
see
a
gap
here.
I
propose
we
fill
it
with
this.
This
requirement
work
with
your
manager
to
to
fill
that
gap
in,
and
I
would
say
like
there
are.
B
There
are
times
when
it's
important
to
advocate
for
yourself,
because
if
you're
not
advocating
for
yourself
who
is-
and
this
holds
a
lot
of
people
back-
you
can
certainly
overdo
it.
I
know
a
lot
of
people
are
very
cautious
about
seeming
too
overly
ambitious
or
something
like
that,
but
you
also
don't
want
to
under.
Do
it
as
well,
so
you
know
signal
be
transparent
with
your
manager
and
there's
a
nice
nice
perfectly
collaborative
way
to
do
it
and
say
hey.
B
B
They
did
want
that
for
themselves,
but
haven't
vocalized
it,
but
that
can
be
that
can
come
from
either
side
and
so
don't
miss
opportunities
to
to
advocate
for
yourself,
because
you
know
everybody's
busy
and-
and
you
don't
want
to
get
accidentally
overlooked
and
I'm
not
typically
worried
about
people
at
gila.
Overdoing
the
ambition
thing
usually
people
here
are
humble.
Almost
to
the
excess,
so
I
think
the
general
advice
for
most
people
is
speak
up
for
yourself.
It's
okay,
that's
particularly
a
101
which
should
be
like
a
safe,
safe
space.