---
layout: handbook-page-toc
title: Enablement Sub-department
---

## On this page
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- TOC
{:toc .hidden-md .hidden-lg}

## Vision

Offer enterprise-grade operational experience of GitLab products from streamlined deployment and maintenance, disaster recovery, secure search and discoverability, to high availability, scalability, and performance.


## Mission

Enablement focuses on improving our capabilities and metrics in the following areas:

 * [Database](/handbook/engineering/development/enablement/database/)
 * [Distribution](/handbook/engineering/development/enablement/distribution/)
 * [Geo (Disaster Recovery)](/handbook/engineering/development/enablement/geo/)
 * [Memory](/handbook/engineering/development/enablement/memory/)
 * [Global Search](/handbook/engineering/development/enablement/search/)

## Fiscal Year 2021 Direction
 * Grow feature maturity to improve enterprise experience and readiness
 * Build and enhance features and integrations to increase market penetration
 * Solidify foundation for smooth operations and high availability to continue to scale and improve our SaaS offering

## Sub-department Members

The following people are permanent members of the Enablement Sub-department:

<%
departments = ['Database', 'Distribution', 'Geo' , 'Memory', 'Global Search']
interim_manager_departments = ['Fulfillment']
department_regexp = /(#{Regexp.union(departments)})/
%>

<%=  direct_team(role_regexp: department_regexp, manager_role: 'Director of Engineering, Enablement') %>

## All Team Members

The following people are permanent members of teams that belong to the Enablement Sub-department:

<% departments.each do |dep| %>
### <%= dep %>
  <% manager_role = interim_manager_departments.include?(dep) ? "Engineering Manager, #{dep} (Interim)" : "Engineering Manager, #{dep}" %>
  <%= direct_team(manager_role: manager_role) %>
<% end %>

## Business Continuity - Coverage and Escalation

The following table shows who will provide cover if one or more of the Enablement Engineering management team are unable to work for any reason.

| Team Member     | Issues/MRs Backup        | People Management Backup    | Escalation   |
| -----           | -----                    | -----                 | -----        |
| Chun Du         | Christopher Lefelhocz    | Christopher Lefelhocz | Eric Johnson |
| Craig Gomes     | Kamil Trzcinski (Memory), Andreas Brandl (DB)    | Changzheng Liu        | Chun Du      |
| Changzheng Liu  | Dylan Griffith           | Craig Gomes           | Chun Du      |
| Steven Wilson   | DJ Mountney              | Nick Nguyen           | Chun Du      |
| Nick Nguyen     | Douglas Alexandre        | Steven Wilson         | Chun Du      |

If an Engineer is unavailable the person providing `Issues/MRs` coverage will reassign open issues and merge requests to another engineer, preferably in the same [group](#all-team-members).

Some people management functions may require escalation or delegation, such as BambooHR and Expensify.

This can be used as the basis for a BCP [Communication Plan and Role Assignments](/handbook/business-ops/gitlab-business-continuity-plan.html#communication-plan-and-role-assignments),
as well as a general guide to Enablement Engineering continuity in the event of one or more team members being unavailable for any reason.

## Stable Counterparts

The following members of other functional teams are our stable counterparts:

<%= stable_counterparts(role_regexp: /[,&] Enablement/, direct_manager_role: 'Director of Engineering, Enablement') %>

## How We Work

* [Apply budget for professional development](./processes/budget_approval.html)
* Integrated Team (Pilot Program)

  The Enablement Sub-department is experimenting `Integrated Team` model where both Frontend and Backend Engineers report to a single Engineering Manager and work in an integral team, which is different from many other sub-departments. The frontend work of Enablement teams are relatively light compared to other sub-departments, as a result the ratio of BE:FE is 12:1 by the end of FY2020, and the projected ratio of FY2021 is even higher. After taking many factors into consideration (see [discussions](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/issues/5775)), Enablement Sub-department will continue experimenting the Integrated Team model for operational efficiency.

## Common Links

* Issue Boards
  * [Database Milestone Board](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/boards/1318796?label_name[]=group%3A%3Adatabase)
  * [Distribution - Helm Charts Kanban Board](https://gitlab.com/charts/gitlab/boards/925761)
  * [Distribution - Omnibus Kanban Board](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/omnibus-gitlab/boards/289804)
  * [Geo Kanban Board](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/boards/1034254) - note that Geo makes a board for every release.
  * [Memory Milestone Board](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/boards/1143987?label_name[]=group%3A%3Amemory)
  * [Search Milestone Board](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/boards/1339901?&label_name[]=group%3A%3Asearch)
* Slack Channels
  * Enablement Sub-department [#dev-enablement](https://gitlab.slack.com/messages/CHJK0EVAM)
  * Database team [#g_database](https://gitlab.slack.com/app_redirect?channel=g_database)
  * Distribution team [#g_distribution](https://gitlab.slack.com/messages/C1FCTU4BE)
  * Geo team [#g_geo](https://gitlab.slack.com/messages/C32LCGC1H)
  * Geo standup [#geo-standup](https://gitlab.slack.com/messages/C7U95P909)
  * Memory team [#g_memory](https://gitlab.slack.com/messages/CGN8BUCKC)
  * Search team [#g_search](https://gitlab.slack.com/app_redirect?channel=g_search)