An exec at $2.75 billion startup GitLab resigns over claims that the company is 'engaging in discriminatory and retaliatory behavior' after proposing a ban on hiring in China and Russia
- Candice Ciresi, GitLab's director of risk and global compliance, has resigned after less than six months on the job, saying that the startup is "engaging in discriminatory and retaliatory behavior."
- Her resignation was in response to a GitLab proposal that it adopt a new policy of banning the hire of support and site reliability engineers from China or Russia and not allowing any of its all-remote workforce in those roles to move to those countries.
- Ciresi had publicly criticized this proposal, saying that it was "contradictory" to the company's policies on other issues.
- GitLab, which makes software to help developers work together and deliver code more frequently, recently raised a series E round of $268 million and plans to go public in 2020.
- The company espouses a philosophy of complete transparency and often opens major corporate and product decisions up for public review and discussion.
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Candice Ciresi, GitLab's director of risk and global compliance, has resigned after less than six months on the job, apparently saying that the $2.75 billion startup is "engaging in discriminatory and retaliatory behavior."
Notably, Ciresi resigned in public: GitLab espouses a culture of transparency, whereby all major product and corporate policy decisions are announced and discussed where anybody can see. She posted her resignation in response to one such discussion — an active debate over a proposed GitLab policy, in which it would ban the hiring of support and site reliability engineers who live in China or Russia for any role that would require access to customer data because of data security requirements from its customers.
Currently GitLab does not have support and site reliability engineers in China and Russia, but it also said that current employees in those roles cannot move to those countries.
At the time of writing, Ciresi's post announcing her resignation had been reviewed and then "redacted" by GitLab, citing concerns that it would "further inflame this situation."
However, Ciresi's comment went out via email to GitLab users who had subscribed to this particular discussion. Per a screenshot posted to Reddit, Ciresi wrote: "As I believe GitLab is engaging in discriminatory and retaliatory behavior, I have tendered my resignation."
"We did decide to moderate this post for review, as there have already been credible personal and physical threats against GitLab employees in this issue thread," GitLab says, in part, in place of Ciresi's comment. "While this particular post did not contain a personal threat to anyone, we were concerned it would further inflame this situation."
GitLab confirmed Ciresi's departure but declined to comment further on matters of personnel. Ciresi told Business Insider that her message spoke for itself and declined further comment at this time.
The backstory
GitLab, which creates software that helps developers ship code faster and more often, has raised a total of $413.82 million in venture-capital funding. In September, it raised a series E round of $268 million, and it has said that it plans to go public in 2020.
In October, the company — which has an all-remote workforce around the globe — proposed the new policy, citing "expressed concern of several enterprise customers, and also what is becoming a common practice in our industry in the current geopolitical climate."
It said it didn't employ anybody in those countries but that the proposal was intended to be forward-looking — but that it would also bar current employees from moving to either place.
Notably, the company preaches a completely transparent culture, whereby its executives post updates on the company — both product news and corporate updates — for anybody to see and for any user to discuss. This particular policy set off an active, sometimes fiery, weekslong discussion.
"This issue can be regarded as act of aggression. In response, all Russian and Chinese programmers and admins must refuse GitLab. From now, it is the toxic political crap. Politics has no place on IT," one recent comment said.
In the discussion of the policy, Ciresi herself wrote: "It seems odd that we proclaim that we will accept any customer not prohibited by law but we are implementing controls that impact employees based on a perceived political climate. This is contradictory."
Ciresi's comment was an apparent reference to another incident in October, when the company updated its company handbook to say it would not reject customers on "moral/value grounds" and banned political discussion in the workplace. The company reversed its stance not long after, following backlash.
Later on Friday, Winnie Hellman, a senior front-end engineer at GitLab, said in the discussion thread that the executive team was meeting to discuss the proposed policy, with an official response to follow.
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