►
Description
Staff Support Engineers discuss questions about their role asked by others on the Support team.
Panelists - Cynthia "Arty" Ng, William Chandler, Drew Blessing
Facilitator - Keelan Lang
https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/support/support-team-meta/-/issues/4247
A
Thank
you
all
for
joining.
My
name
is
keelan,
I'm
going
to
be
facilitating
today's
date
is,
may
26
2022
and
we
are
doing
the
group
ama
for
becoming
and
being
staff
at
git
lab.
Essentially,
what
we'll
do
is
you
know
just
a
standard,
ama
format.
I'll
have
participants
read
their
questions
if
they'd
like,
if
you
don't
want
to
read
your
questions,
I'm
also
happy
to
verbalize
those
and
then
anyone
who's,
not
here
I'll,
go
ahead
and
read
their
questions
as
well.
B
B
C
D
Hi
everyone,
I'm
drew
blessing
former
staff
support
engineer,
that's
been
a
couple
of
years
since
I
was
in
that
role,
but
I
think
I
was
a
staff
support
engineer
for
two
or
three
years.
I
don't
know
exactly
but
appreciate
the
invitation
to
be
here
and
hope.
I
can
remember
a
lot
of
the
things
that
I
did
back
in
that
role
happy
to
share
oh
and
I'm
located
in
nebraska.
A
E
So
I'll
I'll
verbalize,
both
of
them
just
because
I
think
they're
sort
of
related.
My
first
question
is:
how
does
your
staff
activities
differ
from
senior,
and
probably
cynthia
is
more
recent
than
this,
so
she
might
be
happy
to
have
a
better
answer
and
what
is
your
focus
as
a
staff
like?
What?
What
how
much
do
you
focus
on
tickets?
How
much
do
you
focus
on
other
things?
What
what
is
your
like
aim
for,
like
a
month
or
next
few
weeks.
B
Let's
see
I
came
as
a
senior,
so
I
don't
have
any
perspective
there,
but
you
know
like
when
I
when
I
took
the
role
you
know
what
lee
described
it
to
me
was:
is
leveraged
work
right,
so
the
goal
is
not
to
achieve
something
yourself,
necessarily
it's
to
make
it
so
that
the
team
can
can
achieve
something
more
easily
or
you
know
not
to
do
it
at
all.
You
know
like
so
for
me
that
means
that,
in
terms
of
like
tickets,
I
I
try
not
to
really
take
ownership
of
tickets.
B
B
Then
I
might
become
one
of
the
people
that
that
owns
that,
probably
not
probably
not
the
lead,
though
I
still
try
to
let
someone
else
be
the
face
for
the
most
part,
and
then
then
I
also
have
have
some
projects
that
early
at
this
point
only
one
project
fast
stats
to
try
and
help
the
team
be
more
efficient
that
I
spent
some
time
on
them
and
that's
that's
really
clear
miss
you
know
like
it
just
depends
on
like
some
months.
I
have
no
spare
time
to
look
at
that
other
times.
B
D
Yeah,
I'm
trying
to
remember-
and
I
think,
to
an
extent
you
know
some
of
the
processes
and
the
way
that
the
team
operates
today
are
different,
but
I
remember
if
there
was
a
ticket
where
our
team
as
a
whole
didn't
have
a
lot
of
expertise
like
I'll,
say:
ci,
I'm
just
picking
something
out,
but
you
know
at
that
time
we
weren't
specializing
in
anything.
So
if
nobody
on
the
team
knew
right
off
hand,
how
do
we
test
this?
D
How
do
we
figure
out
if
this
is
a
bug
or
what
the
behavior
is
a
lot
of
times?
I
think
that
fell
to
a
staff
engineer
then
to
just
really
dig
in
and
try
to
to
reproduce
it
try
to
figure
it
out,
but
then
coordinating
across
the
development
groups
as
well.
Finding
those
experts
in
the
development
team
that
could
fill
in
those
gaps
for
us.
C
I'm
going
to
say
that
my
answer
would
be
very
similar
to
will's,
where
it
yeah.
It
really
depends
on
the
day
I
had
a
week
recently
that
was
taken
up
by
by
a
security
incident
that
I
had
to
help
with,
because
I
needed
to
help
dev
look
at
which
solution
would
be
the
best
one,
based
on
my
knowledge
of
the
technical
understanding
of
the
feature,
as
well
as
the
impact
on
customers
which
customers
we
needed
to
potentially
reach
out
to
looking
at
logs
to
pull
the
list
of
customers.
C
We
might
reach
out
to
all
of
that,
so
it
probably
took
up
like
half
the
time
for
an
entire
week
that
I
had,
and
so
there
left
very
little
time
for
other
things
so
definitely
like.
Well,
I
do
spend
a
lot
of
time,
helping
others
be
the
leader
of
levers.
I
believe
that
comes
from
the
book
high
output
management,
which
is
one
of
the
books
mentioned
in
our
handbook.
C
If
someone
wants
to
find
the
handbook
link
and
add
it
to
the
doc,
it's
a
really
it's
a
really
good
read,
especially
if
you're
thinking
about
actually
going
into
management.
But
I
think
it's
really
good
for
those
thinking
about
staff
too.
It's
that
lyle
and
libo
talk
about
it
as
well
as
well
mentioned.
It's
really
about
helping
others
be
successful,
and
that
might
take
many
forms,
whether
it's
helping
on
tickets,
whether
it's
helping
improve
our
training,
our
docs
handbook
process,
hiring
you
name.
It.
A
A
The
first
one
of
his
is
when
onboarding
new
ses,
I'm
going
to
assume
the
role
of
ben.
I
often
provide
advice
about
what
to
focus
on
during
onboarding
things.
They
may
struggle
to
find
time
for
later.
Is
there
anything
you
would
advise
aspiring
staff
essies
to
do
before
kicking
off
the
process,
with
the
benefit
of
hindsight.
B
I
guess
I
can
go
first
and
say
not
particularly
no,
unfortunately
not
you
know,
I
was
already
kind
of
focused
on
getting
before
I
became
a
staff
and
then
that
was
kind
of
remained
the
thing
that
they
dealt
with
the
most
after
becoming
staff.
Although
you
know
it's,
I'm
not
like.
That's
not
the
thing
I
deal
with.
Obviously,
but
you
know
I
guess
in
general,
just
having
I
don't
know
those
aren't
so
trite.
B
C
C
B
C
Me
longer,
it
definitely
took
me
longer
to
go
through
my
permission
process
because
I
had
the
conversation
later
than
I
should
have.
But
if
you
ever
want
that
conversation,
I
would
definitely
also
say
that
you
want
to
go
to
your
senior
manager
or
director,
depending
on
which
region
you're
in
to
have
that
conversation.
B
D
No,
no
in
terms
of
the
promotion
process,
I
think
it's
changed
quite
significantly.
It's
probably
a
bit
less
formal,
but
you
know
there's
good
and
bad
to
that.
The
formal
process
you
when
you,
when
you
have
those
requirements,
clearly
laid
out
at
least
ideally
there's.
You
know
exactly
what
you
need
to
do
to
achieve
that.
B
I
feel
like
I
could
you
know,
so
I
think
I
just
doing
my
own
tickets
a
lot
more
than
so
that
was,
I
guess
days
were
more
regular.
You
know,
like
I
knew
what
tickets
in
general,
I
was
dealing
with.
I
kind
of
had
more
of
a
routine
because
it's
like
you
know
I
know
I'm
going
to
pick
up
tickets
for
depending
on
what
are
like.
B
You
know
what
particular
like
scheduling
some
reason
like
that
day
of
the
week
or
that
time
of
the
day
or
whatever,
but
it
was,
it
wasn't
pulled
into
many
directions,
so
that
was
that
was
nice.
You
know
to
be
able
to
in
some
ways
you
know
it's
interesting
because
in
some
ways
I'm
able
to
set
my
schedule
more
as
a
staff.
B
You
know
because,
like
I'm
not
dealing
with
specific
tickets,
but
also
I'm
able
to
set
up
less
because
I'm
I
don't
know,
I
think
at
the
whim-
is
not
the
right
way
of
putting
it,
but
I'm
pulled
in
a
lot
of
directions,
and
so
it's
it
can
be
hard
to
to
really.
I
don't
know
manage
my
time
and
maybe
that's
something.
I'm
just
bad
at,
but
that's
something
that
I
do
mess
a
bit
for
being
a
senior.
C
By
not
always
having
like
a
lot
of
tickets
assigned
to
me
as
well,
so
you
ca
in
a
way
you
can
set
your
schedule
more,
but
then,
because
often
things
come
up.
Security
incidents
escalations
whatever
it
is
that
overrides
whatever
you
had
planned,
I
actually
find
that
my
schedule
is
actually
less
predictable
now
than
it
was
before.
C
How
do
you
measure
that
objectively,
like
if
I
I
can
count
the
number
of
repairing
sessions
I
do,
but
then
I
also
answer
a
lot
of
questions
in
slack
and
none
of
that
is
recorded
anywhere.
So
how
do
you
measure
your
impact
right
and
so
yeah?
I
I
would
say:
that's
that's
one
of
the
things
I
really
struggle
with
and
one
of
the
things
that
I'm
gonna
work
on
with
my
managers
for
us
to
kind
of
think
about
how
we
can
best
measure
the
impact
of
someone
working
at
the
staff
level.
C
D
In
terms
of
the
support
side
of
things,
I
think
that
that
it
kind
of
lies
with
you
to
to
find
those
solutions,
and
so
that
adds
some
pressure
as
well,
as
I
think
pressure
to
find
and
do
some
of
the
projects
like
will
was
mentioning.
I
remember
fast,
stats
will
was
always
creating
scripts
and
things
that
were
very
helpful
in
working
with
customer
issues.
So,
but
that
does
add
a
little
bit
of
pressure
as
well
to
create
those
projects
and
find
that
impact
for
the
team.
A
C
A
B
B
D
C
The
only
thing
I'll
add
is
that
I
I
definitely
agree
in
terms
of
how
we
work
individually,
there's
not
going
to
be
much
of
a
change.
Anyone
who's
gone
through
their
promotion
to
senior
will
know
that
going
from
intermediate
to
senior
you're
you're
being
promoted
to
senior,
because
you're
already
doing
that
work
and
in
a
lot
of
ways.
That's
true
for
staff
as
well,
but
in
terms
of
what
a
staff
does
that,
I
think,
is
particularly
kind
of
more
it's
it's
more
than
what
a
senior
would
do.
I
don't
know
it's.
C
The
most
important
thing
is
looking
at
kind
of
the
higher
level
and
being
more
strategic
about
it.
So
if
you
watched
actually
the
discussion
that
I
had
with
lyle
last
year
that
we
recorded
one
of
the
things
we
talked
about
was
that
as
an
intermediate
often
you're
just
focused
on
your
own
work.
So
like
your
tickets
and
getting
tickets
done
as
a
senior
you're
more
focused
on
the
team
as
a
whole,
how
to
help
the
team
how
to
help
others
in
the
team
as
a
staff
you
go
beyond
that.
You
go.
C
You
start
looking
at
not
just
a
team,
but
also
how
to
leverage
what
we
do
in
support
to
help
the
whole
company-
and
you
know,
even
though
some
of
the
tooling
that
will
and
others
have
built,
is-
is
for
supports
use
in
a
lot
of
ways.
We
also
send
those
over
to
customers
for
customers
to
use
and
help
analyze
things
right.
That's
not
always
true
for
all
the
tools
we
built,
but
certainly
some
of
them,
and
it
makes
us
more
efficient,
which
means
we're
spending
less
time
per
ticket
again.
C
It
increases
all
of
supports
efficiency,
which
has
an
impact
on
our
budgeting
and
all
this
other
stuff.
So
it's
helping
the
company
at
a
higher
level.
Some
of
the
other
work
that
we
do
again
mention
escalated,
customers.
You
know
we're
often
working
across
multiple
teams
with
customer
success,
dev
and
support,
possibly
others-
and
you
know
I
often
end
up
working
with
security
or
infra
on
some
of
the
other
issues
that
I
specifically
work
on.
So
I
think
that
is
kind
of
what
distinguishes
often
the
level
of
work
that
staff
does
and
again.
C
We
also
think
more
about
the
strategic
direction
that
support
is
taking
as
a
whole,
and
we
might
not
do
that.
Like
think
about
that,
specifically
for
every
piece
of
work
that
we
do,
but
we'll
work
with
our
managers
to
look
at
how
we
prioritize
things
based
on
the
direction
for
support
as
a
whole
and
and
within
how
we
fit
the
company.
Does
that
make
sense?
Hopefully,.
A
B
C
I
already
mentioned
that,
like
in
my
view,
the
main
thing
is
that
you
have
to
have
that
discussion
about
company
need
and
what
you're
fulfilling
around
that.
Aside
from
that,
I
think
what
you
put
in
the
dock
exactly
is
obviously
going
to
be
different,
but
the
process,
I
think,
is
pretty
much
the
same.
B
I
think
that's
definitely
true
and
I
think
that's
one
of
the
nice
things
about
gitlab
as
a
whole
is
that
you're
not
really
pigeonholed,
and
that,
if
you
see
a
need,
you
can
just
do
it
for
the
most
part,
assuming
that
it's
not
like
getting
in
the
way
of
your
job
in
general.
So
yeah,
that's
one
of
the
things,
although
I
get
that
I
guess.
C
The
only
thing
I'll
add
is
that
that's
true
of
any
role,
I
know
some
intermediates
that
could
become
senior
if
they
wanted
to,
but
they
don't
want
to
change
the
focus
that
they
have
in
their
work
and
that's
okay
and
that's
true
for
seniors
too.
If
they
want
to
stay
a
senior
so
that
they
can
focus
on
what
we
think
of
as
a
focus
for
a
senior
in
their
work.
C
So
I
actually
straight
up
said
well.
If
we
can't
find
something
for
me
to
focus
on,
then
I
would
just
stay
senior
like
that's.
That's
that's
not
a
problem
right!
I
mean
it's.
It's
again,
it's
just
something
that
you're
allowed
to
do
and
you're
free
to
do
and
it's
there.
There
isn't
a
push
to
always
be
moving
up.
A
All
right,
I
don't
think
gucash
is
here
so
I'll.
Read
that
question
as
well
since,
as
mentioned
above
promotion
to
staff,
requires
fulfilling
a
company
need.
I
assume
the
path
to
print
emotion
and
the
promo
document
itself
should
be
sorry,
should
both
show
the
way
you
fill
it.
How
did
you
find
and
describe
that
need.
A
C
My
guess
is
for
brochure
and
will
that
it
was
there.
It
was
just
described
as
part
of
the
manager
summary
which
we
have
at
the
top
of
every
promo
dog,
and
that's
actually
true
for
myself
as
well.
I
I'd
have
to
look
it
up
to
be
sure,
but
I
don't
remember
the
doc.
You
know
specifically
saying
this:
is
the
company
need
that
cynthia
is
fulfilling
right
like
it's
it
doesn't?
C
B
G
B
I
don't
think
it's
necessarily
a
natural
one,
so
I
think
we've
had
roughly
equal
numbers
of
people
from
sport
go
into
sre
and
into
development
off
the
top
of
my
head,
because
we
had
cindy
and
rahab
certainly
went
sre
drew
catalin,
oh
jason
and
myself
from
development
yeah,
so
I
you
know
certainly
like
I
think
those
are
kind
of
like
the
two
places
that
people
from
sport
have
gone
within
gitlab.
I
don't
think
that
development
is
necessarily
more
of
a
place
for
staff
versus
sre.
B
B
F
C
C
C
D
B
Yeah,
that's
a
good
question
yeah.
You
know
I
think,
as
for
me,
sre
would
have
been
another
place
to
go.
You
know
I
like
performance
issues
and
you
can
kind
of
get
it
from
either
side.
So,
like
an
srv
there's
like
matt,
smiley
and
igor
biedler,
I
don't
know
igor
www
that
guy
are
really
involved
with
apartments,
so
that
would
have
been
another
valid
place
to
go
for
that
that
kind
of
stuff,
but
you
know
you
know
I
ended
up
in
gitli
just
because
I'd
been
dealing
with
it
so
much.
D
D
C
C
But,
as
I
said
in
slack,
I
don't
have
any
plans
to
move
at
least
anytime
soon,
so
I
was
invited
and
encouraged
to
apply,
but
I
I
didn't
I
have
for
those
of
you
who
have
talked
to
me
enough
know
that
I
don't
really
consider
myself
a
developer
and
I
will
say
I
code,
but
I
don't
really
program
and
I
like
troubleshooting
more
than
writing
code.
So
I
yeah.
A
All
right
julia
is
writing
a
question
as
I
speak,
so
I'll
wait
for
her
to
finish
that
one
and
then
I'll
have
her.
Ask
that
we're
doing
good
on
time.
That's
our
last
question.
If
you
have
any
further
questions
that
you
want
to
add,
please
feel
free
to
add
them
to
the
document.
It's
both
in
slack
and
on
the
calendar.
Invite
so
feel
free
to
throw
anything
else
in
there,
and
I
think
it's
probably
the
understanding
that
if
we
don't
get
to
everything
that
hopefully
they'll
be
filled
out,
async
afterwards.
G
So
as
someone
who's
new
to
the
company,
my
understanding
is
that
nobody
knows
everything
I
mean
you
just
can't
know
everything.
So,
as
staff
engineers
do
you
do
more
specializing
like
will
works
with
gilly
a
lot
from
what
I
just
understood
here
or
do
you
have
a
more
broad
experience
of
all
of
the
things
like
broad
knowledge?
That's
like
an
inch
deep
or
do
you
just
do
more
specializing.
B
But
then
you
know,
as
as
kind
of
like
as
someone
who's
just
a
resource
for
the
team
that
is
very
spread
apart
and
very
broad.
You
know
like
the
senior
help
sessions
could
be
anything,
although
I
feel
like
in
my
calls
andrew
ends
up
answering
half
the
questions.
I
don't
know
anyway.
So
thank
you,
andrew
for
being
my
backup
senior
in
a
way
but
yeah.
So
you
know
it's
you're,
both
specializing
and
being
called
to
be
very
broad.
At
the
same
time,.
C
I
would
just
say
that
I
think
this
is
true
for
senior
and
staff
that
the
most
important
thing
is
kind
of
those
troubleshooting
skills
right.
It's
that
someone
comes
up
with
a
problem
to
you
and
you
know
where
to
start.
You
know
where
to
go,
and
there
are
cases
where
you
know
during
the
help
sessions
or
repairing
sessions
whatever
it
is
that
even
I'll
be
like.
I
think
you
need
an
expert
in
this
topic.
Let's
find
someone
for
you
and
the
product's
just
too
big
for
us
to
be
an
expert
in
everything.
C
C
You
know
you
there's
a
new
feature
in
sas,
in
particular,
with
skim,
and
then
you
work
on
one
ticket.
You
work
on
two
tickets,
you
start
doing
demo,
videos
and
then
all
of
a
sudden,
you're
an
expert,
and
then
you
know
you're
the
one
asking
the
hard
questions
of
death.
Thank
you
drew
for
always
you
know
being
willing
to
help
troubleshoot
a
lot
of
the
skin
issues.
C
A
B
You
know
stronger
at
kind
of
like
widely
applicable
troubleshooting
techniques,
so
like
s
trace
for
as
an
example
right
so
like
that
can
be
used
for
any
number
of
problems,
and
you
know
being
efficient
and
understanding
that
and
being
able
to
use
that
quickly
has
been.
You
know
like
a
force
multiplier
or
whatever
in
terms
of
like
helping
me
get
to
the
prop.
C
C
And
yeah
like
gq,
is
like
another
one
that
I
think
we
all
recognize
will
be
again
like
being
really
good
at
and
I'm
always
amazed
at
how
quickly
you
can,
like
rate
j.cuke.
You
know
in
terminal
to
bring
up
summaries
of
things
from
logs.
So
just
to
add
to
that
I
would
say
that's
true.
It's
it's
about
a
lot
of.
It
is
actually
searching
skills
right
like
it's.
C
C
C
I
think
everyone
knows
that
will-
and
I
are
quite
different
in
terms
of
the
company-
need
that
we're
for
fulfilling
right
or
that
we
have
been,
and
it
is
about
finding
that
need
that
you
are
fulfilling
for
for
staff
and
so
definitely
have
that
conversation
early,
and
you
may
not
have
to
have
it
multiple
times,
but
definitely
have
that
conversation
early.
The
other
thing
is
to
look
at
what
path
you
want
to
take.
C
I've
talked
specifically
before
about
why
I
chose
not
to
be
a
manager,
but
almost
everyone
that
I
think,
is
a
senior.
So
many
of
the
seniors
I
could
see
becoming
either
staff
or
manager
have
the
skills
to
do
it,
and
if
you
want
someone
to
talk
to
ronald
and
emea
has
specifically
talked
about
why
he
like
wants
to
go
the
manager
track
so
potentially
talk
to
him,
but
definitely
don't
feel
like
stuff
is
the
only
path.
It's
not.
A
Right
on
well,
I
think
that
is
a
pretty
good
point
to
end
on
steph.
If
any
of
you
want
to
fill
out
the
answers
asynchronously
in
the
question
pool
feel
free,
but
otherwise
we
are
all
set
here.
We
are
at
time
I'm
going
to
go
ahead
and
end
the
recording
now-
and
I
hope
everyone
has
a
wonderful
rest
of
your
day.