The pandemic forced companies worldwide to make an abrupt shift to remote work, but GitLab had already mastered the art of building fully distributed teams. With over 1,500 employees across more than 65 countries and no physical offices, GitLab’s approach to remote work offers valuable lessons for organizations still navigating this new normal.

While many companies are still figuring out how to make remote work successful, GitLab has been operating as an all-remote company since its founding in 2014. Their experience provides a blueprint for building strong, cohesive teams without sharing physical space—and their methods are surprisingly practical.

GitLab’s Remote-First Philosophy

Unlike many organizations that merely tolerate remote work, GitLab embraces it as a foundational principle. Darren Murph, GitLab’s Head of Remote, explains that this distinction is crucial: “A lot of companies are remote-allowed or remote-tolerant, whereas GitLab is remote-first.”

This remote-first mindset permeates everything GitLab does. The company doesn’t just allow employees to work from home; it deliberately designs its entire operation around distributed work. From communication protocols to management practices, every aspect of GitLab’s business is built with remote collaboration in mind.

This intentionality makes GitLab different from companies that simply moved online during the pandemic without rethinking their fundamental operating models. While many businesses attempted to recreate office environments in digital spaces, GitLab recognized early that distributed work requires a completely different approach.

Documentation Over Synchronous Communication

Perhaps the most striking aspect of GitLab’s remote strategy is its emphasis on documentation. In a traditional office, information often spreads through casual conversations and impromptu meetings. At GitLab, virtually everything is documented in writing.

“We default to asynchronous communication,” says Murph. “That means we write things down.” This practice ensures that all team members have access to the same information regardless of their time zone or when they’re working.

GitLab maintains a comprehensive company handbook—over 12,000 pages if printed—that details everything from company values to specific procedures for each department. This extensive documentation serves as the central source of truth for the organization, eliminating the need for most meetings and reducing the disadvantages remote workers typically face when important information is shared verbally.

The Handbook-First Approach

GitLab’s handbook isn’t just a reference document—it’s a living repository that employees constantly update. When decisions are made or processes change, the handbook is immediately revised to reflect the new reality.

This “handbook-first” approach means that new employees can quickly get up to speed without excessive training or orientation. It also prevents knowledge silos, where critical information becomes concentrated among a small group of employees.

“In an office, information spreads organically, but it spreads unevenly. In a remote environment, you have to be intentional about sharing information, but when you do, it spreads evenly to everyone.” — Darren Murph, Head of Remote at GitLab

Structured Socialization

One of the most common concerns about remote work is the potential loss of workplace relationships and company culture. GitLab addresses this challenge head-on through deliberate socialization practices.

Unlike the spontaneous interactions that happen in an office, GitLab creates structured opportunities for team members to connect on a personal level. These include:

• Coffee chats: Random pairings of employees for 25-minute informal video conversations
• Team social calls: Non-work video gatherings focused on building relationships
• Virtual coworking: Sessions where team members work together while on a video call
• Special interest groups: Channels for employees to connect over shared hobbies and interests

The company also hosts annual in-person gatherings called GitLab Contribute, where team members from around the world come together for a week of collaboration and bonding. These events help reinforce connections that have been built virtually throughout the year.

Intentional Informal Communication

GitLab recognizes that the casual interactions that happen naturally in an office environment need to be deliberately engineered in a remote setting. To facilitate this, the company encourages what it calls “non-work conversations” during regular meetings.

Team calls often begin with icebreaker questions or personal updates, creating space for the kind of relationship-building that might otherwise be missing. Managers are trained to allocate time for these interactions rather than focusing exclusively on task-oriented discussions.

This approach acknowledges that effective teamwork depends on personal connections, even in a fully distributed environment. By making space for informal communication, GitLab helps prevent the isolation that can sometimes plague remote workers.

Transparent Leadership and Decision-Making

Transparency is another cornerstone of GitLab’s remote work philosophy. The company operates with a level of openness that would be unusual even in a traditional office environment.

Almost all of GitLab’s internal communications happen in public Slack channels rather than private messages. This transparency ensures that information flows freely throughout the organization and that employees have context for decisions that affect their work.

Even leadership discussions that would typically happen behind closed doors are conducted in the open. GitLab’s CEO, Sid Sijbrandij, regularly shares his thoughts and decision-making processes with the entire company, modeling the transparent communication that the organization values.

Values as Decision-Making Framework

GitLab’s six core values—Collaboration, Results, Efficiency, Diversity & Inclusion, Iteration, and Transparency (CREDIT)—serve as a decision-making framework for employees at all levels. These values are not just platitudes on a wall; they’re actively used to guide daily work.

When faced with a decision, GitLab team members are encouraged to reference these values and explain their reasoning in terms of how it aligns with them. This shared framework creates consistency in a distributed environment where traditional oversight is impossible.

“When you have clearly articulated values and you hire people who resonate with those values, you can trust them to make good decisions without constant supervision.” — Sid Sijbrandij, CEO of GitLab

Asynchronous Work as a Competitive Advantage

GitLab views asynchronous work not as a limitation but as a strategic advantage. By designing workflows that don’t require real-time collaboration, the company can tap into a global talent pool and maintain productivity across all time zones.

This approach requires rethinking traditional management practices. Instead of measuring hours worked or monitoring activity, GitLab focuses on outputs and results. Employees are evaluated on their contributions rather than their presence, giving them freedom to work when and how they’re most productive.

Asynchronous work also forces clarity in communication. Without the ability to ask quick follow-up questions in person, GitLab employees learn to provide complete context in their initial communications, reducing back-and-forth and increasing efficiency.

The End of Synchronous Meetings

While many remote companies still rely heavily on video meetings, GitLab has drastically reduced its dependence on synchronous communication. The company follows a simple rule: if a meeting can be an email or a document, it should be.

When meetings are necessary, GitLab ensures they’re as efficient as possible. All meetings have agendas shared in advance, allowing participants to contribute their thoughts beforehand. Meetings are recorded and notes are taken for those who can’t attend, ensuring no one misses critical information due to scheduling conflicts or time zone differences.

This approach not only accommodates a global workforce but also eliminates many of the inefficiencies associated with traditional meetings, such as schedule coordination and context switching.

Implementing GitLab’s Methods in Your Organization

You don’t need to become a fully remote company overnight to benefit from GitLab’s methods. Here are practical steps any organization can take to improve remote team building:

Start with Documentation

Begin building your company’s knowledge base by documenting key processes and decisions. This doesn’t have to be as extensive as GitLab’s handbook immediately, but start with the most important information that team members need to do their jobs effectively.

• Create a central repository for company information
• Document decisions and their rationales
• Make documentation accessible to everyone
• Update documentation as processes evolve

Rethink Communication Channels

Audit your current communication practices and shift more conversations to asynchronous channels. This might include moving from quick questions in messaging apps to more thoughtful written documents or from synchronous meetings to collaborative documents with comment threads.

Consider which meetings are truly necessary and which could be replaced with asynchronous alternatives. For those that remain, ensure they have clear agendas and that information is captured for those who can’t attend.

Create Deliberate Social Opportunities

Implement structured ways for team members to connect personally. This could be as simple as starting team meetings with personal check-ins or as involved as creating a formal program for virtual coffee chats between employees.

Remember that in a remote environment, social connections don’t happen by accident—they need to be engineered. Allocate time and resources to building relationships, recognizing that these connections are essential to effective teamwork.

The Future of Remote Teambuilding

As remote and hybrid work arrangements become permanent fixtures in the business landscape, organizations will need to become more intentional about how they build and maintain teams across distances. GitLab’s example shows that with the right practices, remote teams can be just as cohesive and effective as co-located ones—perhaps even more so.

The key insight from GitLab’s experience is that successful remote work isn’t about recreating the office experience online. It’s about embracing the unique advantages of distributed work while deliberately addressing its challenges.

By focusing on documentation, transparent communication, structured socialization, and asynchronous workflows, companies can build strong remote teams that deliver exceptional results regardless of where team members are located.

In a world where talent is distributed globally but opportunity has traditionally been concentrated in a few geographic hubs, GitLab’s approach represents not just a different way of working but a more equitable future of work—one where people can contribute at the highest levels without uprooting their lives to relocate to expensive tech centers.

The companies that master these practices now will have a significant advantage in attracting and retaining talent in the increasingly competitive global marketplace. The future of work is already here—it’s just unevenly distributed.

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