GitLab, Workforce Cuts and Organizational Restructuring

In Act 2, GitLab is simultaneously pursuing workforce cuts and organizational restructuring. It will cut the number of countries with small teams by up to 30%, and in some functions will eliminate up to 3 layers of management so that leaders are closer to the ground.

R&D will be reorganized into roughly 60 smaller, more autonomous teams, shifting to a structure where each team holds end-to-end responsibility. The core intent is to increase the number of team units that can work independently and quickly in the agentic era.

The value system is also changing. The existing CREDIT (Collaboration, Results for Customers, Efficiency, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging, Iteration, Transparency) will be retired, and the new criteria are Speed with Quality, Ownership Mindset, and Customer Outcomes. However, the removal of Diversity from the new system could spark controversy, and GitLab has specified diversity, inclusion, and respect under the Customer Outcomes item.

The underlying logic is simple: in the agentic era, the cost of producing software will plummet, which will drive even greater demand, and the developer platform market could grow from tens of dollars per person per month to hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars. That said, GitLab's stock price has fallen from about $52 a year ago to about $26 now, so this outlook should be read alongside the company's vested interest in its own core market.