►
Description
Taurie Davis and Rayana Verissimo talk about design, leadership, and career development at GitLab. https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-design/-/issues/1545
A
Hi
everyone,
I'm
ryan,
ferrismo,
I'm
a
product
design
manager
here
get
lab
working
with
the
cicd
team,
and
this
video
is
part
of
a
series
that
looks
into
the
staff
and
product
side
manager,
responsibilities
at
gitlab
through
the
lenses
of
designers
that
made
a
transition
from
ic
to
leadership,
and
today,
I'm
here
with
tori
to
talk
a
little
bit
about
her
career
development,
her
role
as
a
manager
for
the
foundations
team
and
her
yeah
her
journey
gitlab.
So
sorry,
can
you
start
by
introducing
yourself.
B
B
A
B
A
A
And
how
is
your
role
different
from
because,
before
you
were
a
staff
right,
your
last
role,
as
you
were
also
in
leadership,
but
I
see
leadership.
How
was
the
transition?
I
know
that
that
might
be
a
bit
knowing
that
you
you're
already
in
leadership
for
so
long
yeah.
But
do
you
have
any
challenges,
navigating
the
transition
from
staff
to
manager.
B
Yeah,
so
I
think
for
me,
like
back
when
I
joined,
get
lab,
if
I
can
just
give
some
context
like
we
were
around
five
designers
and
we
were
being
led
under
the
front
end
organization.
At
that
time.
Eventually
we
needed,
we
were
growing
a
lot.
We
needed
to
kind
of
form
our
own
department,
so
we
ended
up
hiring
a
ux
lead.
I
kind
of
filled
that
role
for
a
bit
and
then
I
went
back
to
ic.
Then
we
needed
a
manager.
B
I
filled
that
role
and
went
back
to
ic
and
at
that
time
I
really
didn't
feel
that
I
felt
like
I
could
make
a
better
impact
or
more
of
an
impact
as
an
ic,
especially
because
I
was
so
interested
in
design
systems.
But,
additionally,
I
didn't
really
have
a
lot
of
design
managers
that
I
could
have
learned
from
at
that
time
and
I
felt
like
it
wasn't
in
my
best
interest.
It
wasn't
really
in
gitlab's
best
interest.
B
I
felt
to
to
move
into
this
like
manager
role.
I
just
didn't
really
have
like
the
background
of
people
management,
so
I
chose
to
stay
in
the
ic
role
and
I
was
like
there's
no
way
I'm
going
to
be
a
manager,
but
then
eventually
get
lab
kind
of
hired.
You
know
a
slew
of
design
managers,
we
had
a
director.
B
Now
we
have
a
vp,
so
there's
been
kind
of
a
lot
of
different
backgrounds
and
people
to
learn
from,
and
I've
done,
my
own
learning
on
the
side
as
well,
and
I
feel
like
that
kind
of
helped
me
with
the
people
management
transition.
I
think
a
lot
of
the
the
skills
that
you
develop
as
like
a
senior
senior
I
see
are
still
applicable
as
a
man,
a
people
manager
there's
just
like
the
added
aspect
of
managing
people
like
having
one-on-ones
and
doing
career
conversations,
and
things
like
that.
Yeah.
A
Yeah
and
I
understand
where
you're
coming
from,
I
I
see
myself
in
what
you
just
said
in
experimenting
with
the
robot
not
feeling
comfortable
with
making
the
transition,
because
you
don't
have
either
a
reference,
but
also
in
some
organizations
you
don't
have
a
mentor.
You
don't
have
someone
that
it's
working
on
your
development
right.
A
I
understand
the
career
development.
Yes,
it's
something
personal
that
we
own,
but
it's
also
manager
facilitated,
and
I
understand
how
important
that
can
be,
but
also
makes
me
think
of
opportunities
right
to
develop
yourself.
So
you
talked
about
once
we
hire
a
group
of
design.
Managers
wants
to
start
expanding
as
our
organizations,
but
I
wanted
to
yeah
I'm
just
curious
to
just
hear
what
development
opportunities
did
you
seek.
What
was
important
for
you.
B
Yeah
so
I
started
reading
making
a
manager
like
immediately,
which
is
a
pretty
good
book,
and
then
I
also
git
lab,
has
a
the
plato
platform,
which
is
like
a
mentorship
platform.
So
you
can
talk
with
mentors
outside
of
gitlab,
so
I
signed
up
for
that
which
was
really
great.
I
had
three
different
mentors
and
I
was
able
to
just
kind
of
ask
them
a
ton
of
different
questions,
and
it
also
happened
to
be
around
the
same
time
when
we
were
doing
like
the
yearly
performance
reviews.
B
Things
like
that,
and
then
additionally,
you
and
I
both
did
the
gitlab
management
challenge
week,
which
was
a
series
of
different
challenges
every
day
to
kind
of
build
on
different
topics,
so
that
was
really
valuable
and
then
yeah.
I
think
it's
like
continuous
learning,
learning
opportunities
so
like
right
now,
I'm
doing
the
leading
design
conference,
which
is
like
a
month-long
thing,
there's
different
talks
every
thursday
of
the
month,
and
there
was
a
three-day
conference
earlier
this
month
related
to
that.
A
I
think
here
so
yeah
so
fortunate
to
have
had
this
experience
over
your
transitions
at
gitlab
but
other
than
the
trainings.
Do
you
see?
What
do
you
see
today
in
terms
of
leadership
skills
that
designers
can
develop
that
are
necessarily
not
necessarily
tied
to
transitioning,
to
the
manager
role
or
to
the
staff
role?
If
that
makes
sense,
I'm
kind
of.
B
Nice
here,
please
that
makes
complete
sense.
So
to
me
I
don't
really
I've
thought
about
this,
a
lot
of
like
what
is
leadership
and
I
feel
like
it's
really
hard
to
kind
of
drill
down
into
like
a
sentence,
because
leadership
can
look
so
different
on
different
people,
but
I
think,
if
you
think
about
leadership,
the
overall
kind
of
context
is
just
like
the
ability
to
kind
of
rally
a
group
of
people
on
a
common
goal.
B
Whatever
that
looks
like
you
can
really
do
that
at
any
level
right,
you
don't
have
to
be
staff,
you
don't
have
to
be
a
people
manager,
you
don't
have
to
be
a
director
or
the
ceo
or
any
anything
like
that
to
kind
of
rally
people
around
a
common
goal.
So
I
think,
there's
an
aspect,
especially
in
our
industry,
in
tech
of
like
understanding
the
business
and
being
able
to
know
what.
A
B
A
Experts
or
pajamas
expert
accessibility
expert,
when
I
think
about
leadership
today
and
when
I
look
at
how
organizations
structure
and
the
opportunities
that
are
there
for
us
to
you
know
just
not
just
because
it's
not
easy.
It's
a
combination
of
factors,
but
I
think
it's
also
important
for
designers,
but
also
each
individual
contributor
to
define
their
branding.
A
A
B
B
I
was
like
this
is
the
worst
thing
ever
so
I
think
that's
why
I'm
like
very
much
into
design
systems
of
like
we
have
this
specific
spacing,
and
we
have
all
these
guidelines
and,
like
you,
don't
get
to
say
that
you
need
to
move
this
over
by
a
pixel
or
anything
like
that.
So
I
really
think
that,
like
played
into
how
I've
gravitated
towards
design
systems.
A
B
A
Did
you
actually
work
on
a
formal
career
development
or
career
plan
document
process?
You
know
whatever
you
want
to
call,
or
was
your
thing,
your
process,
more
fluid,
as
in
okay,
I've
been
experimenting
with
this,
I'm
kind
of
learning
what
I
want
to
become
or
what
I
want
to
get,
or
were
you
more
precise
about
how
you
yeah
you
plan
your
career.
B
I
I've
always
been
more
on
the
fluid
side.
I
I'm
not.
I
haven't
really
like
created
a
ton
of
documents
for
myself,
yeah,
definitely
more
on
the
fluid
side,
and
I
think
that's
all
very
individualistic.
I
know
some
people
are
like
really
into
creating
like
here's,
where
I
want
to
go.
Here's
all
my
goals
like
here's,
how
I'm
going
to
get
there.
I
haven't
really
done
that.
I
don't
know
I've.
B
A
B
Like
I
didn't
really
know
where
I
wanted
to
go
until
like
the
foundation
team
formed-
and
I
was
like
all
right-
this
is
something
that
I
like
really
wanted
to
do
and
and
I
get
to
work
on
what
I
love
to
work
on
with
really
awesome
people,
so
it
just
kind
of
worked
out
but
yeah.
I
haven't
really
done
the
whole
like
create.
Maybe
if
I
would
have
created
something
then
I
wouldn't
have
been
so
confused
about
where
I
wanted
to
go,
but
I
did
do
it.
B
B
B
A
A
Yeah
the
conversations
I
had
with
myself
right
in
previous
lives
outside
of
gitlab,
but
also
with
mentors
and
my
experience
as
acting
manager,
is
that
it
is
first
off.
I
want
to
say
that
it's
okay,
that
you
don't
know
where
you're
going,
I
feel,
like
people
put
so
much
pressure
on
themselves,
that
oh,
I
have
to
have
a
plan
so
that
I.
A
And
that's!
That's
awesome!
That's
fine,
because
that's
when
you
have
the
opportunity
to
create
ways
to
experiment
with
different
things
right
come
from
the
the
the
idea
or
the
assumption
that
if
you
already
know
sometimes
that
it's
too
rigid
and
yeah,
you
don't
look
around
you
to
see
what
else
you
need
to
develop
or
what
other
skills,
for
example,
you
could
evolve
that
or
improve
that
would
influence
and
benefit
you
as
a
person
as
a
professional,
so
I'm
very
structured,
so
I'm
very
detailed,
I'm
mom!
B
A
A
Skill
to
have
I
keep
telling
people
show
the
receipt
show
the
receipts,
not
just
you
know,
for
the
positive,
but
also
this
is
something
that
was
challenging.
That
happened,
and
this
is
how
I
try
to
solve
the
situation
you
don't
always
have
to
show.
You
know
all
the
positive,
the
great
things
about
hearing
yourself
the
process.
A
B
So
that's
really
my
personal
development
and
then,
like
I
mentioned
a
little
earlier
doing,
the
leading
design
conference
has
been
really
awesome
because
that's
just
been
different
perspectives
on
leadership
itself,
which
I've
really
enjoyed
because
they
do
approach
it
from
like
the
ic.
The
people
manager
kind
of
like
the
all
levels,
type
thing
that
we've
been
discussing,
which
I
think
is
great.
B
B
A
All
can
power
up
our
skills
and
in
accessibility.
So
that's
also
super
cool.
Let's
talk
about
just
we're
almost
at
the
end,
I
think,
but
I'm
curious
to
hear
from
you.
We
talked
about
showcasing
our
work.
We
talked
about
learning
skills
and
you
know
how
each
person
here
is
a
manager
of
one,
but
I'm
curious
to
hear
what
skills
like.
B
Yeah,
I
think
communication
has
to
be
really
high
up
on
that
list,
for
a
variety
of
reasons
like
one
being
able
to
communicate
your
ideas
in
a
way
that
other
people
will
understand
and
also
fairly
quickly,
because
we
are
an
async
organization
and
people
are
their
attention
is
pulled
in
so
many
different
directions.
So
how
are
you
going
to
showcase
whatever
it
is?
You
want
to
talk
about
in
a
way
that
is
succinct
and
will
allow
other
people
to
kind
of
rally
around
whatever
your
idea
is.
B
I
think
that's
really
important
another
one
related
to
that.
I
think,
is
the
asynchronous
communication
part
so
being
able
to
kind
of
knowing
where
and
when,
not
really,
when
I
don't
think
knowing
where
to
write
your
ideas
or
or
how
to
communicate
them
is
really
important
so
that
people
can
come
back
and
see
them
later.
You
know,
if
you,
you
know,
if
you
only
post
it
in
slack
once
then,
a
lot
of
people
are
gonna,
miss
that
so
like.
B
To
write
it
down,
knowing
where,
in
the
handbook,
it
should
go,
knowing
which
something
should
be
an
issue
versus
a
merge
request,
like
kind
of
knowing
these
different
ways
of
how
gitlab
specifically
works
in
order
to
get
more
people
to
to
look
at
whatever,
whatever
it
is,
you're
working
on
and
then
third,
third,
I
think,
would
be
having
a
having
more
investment
in
the
business
side
so
like
knowing
what
our
three-year
strategy
is.
Knowing
how
your
work
contributes
to
that
strategy.
B
I've
like
different
different
functions,
use
different
terminology
and
I
think
gitlab
is
very
good
at
like
not
using
lofty
terms
for
different
things,
which
I
think
is
really
great.
We
should
all
be
able
to
speak
in
normal
human
speak,
but
there's
also
a
level
of
knowing
like
okay.
What
are
the
goals
of
these?
What's
the
goals
of
product
over
the
next
year?
What's
the
goals
of
sales
like
how
do
all
these
things
match
up
and
how
do?
B
A
B
And
seeing
that
there's
a
business
need
for
this
skill
and
why
is
it
important
and
then
managing
up
to
the
people
around
you
to
explain?
Why
is
this
important?
Why
should
we
be
focusing
on
it
and
then
it
becomes
something
that
comes
top
down
where
we
now
have
buy-in
from
the
vp
level
for
the
entire
organization
to
do
this,
accessibility
training.
So
it
starts
from
the
bottom
and
then
it
comes
back
down
and
I
think
that's
really
important
and
that
that's
an
example
of
that
leadership
can
come
from
anywhere.
It's
not
it's.
A
A
I
do
believe
that
that's
part
of
my
workflow
at
gitlab,
but
also
when
a
designer,
for
example,
wants
to
contribute
to
the
code
base
right
or
wants
to
work
on
ui
polish
or
wants
to
work,
learn
more
about
research,
accessibility,
that's
leadership
and
being
able
to
enable
growth
around
you
and
work
with
your
strategy
counterparts
so
that
they
can
be
unblocked
by
the
work
that
you
do
it.
It
is
just
what
we
do,
that's
what
we're
being
paid
for,
but
it's
also
exemplifying
leadership
as
an
individual
contributor
as
a
designer.