Ops Section +10: Add FE Capability to Configure

Summary

The Configure team is currently 7 BE engineers. As we make progress on IaC, k8s management, and eventually ADO and other categories, it is critical that we complement the team with FE development capabilities as both the short term and long term work are full-stack.

💥 ➡ Watch a video about what the Configure team wants to achieve with a great frontend engineer ⬅ 💥

Proposal

• We would like to get a FE from another team as
• new incremental investment is unlikely before Q3.

Note: We don't know the consequences of this on the FE sourcing team, and an incremental investment there might be necessary in Q3.

Process to follow

The possible options are listed on the product investments page

We are looking at a headcount reset or a realignment as new incremental investment is unlikely before Q3.

Business Justification

Roadmap

1. The short term roadmap high priority items are listed below. Each one of these relies on a user interface, without which we don't have a complete product. Without the skills of a Front-end engineer means we are more at risk of delivering a sub-par performance at a slower pace. This will mean we will be less competitive with tools like ArgoCD and Flux.
   • Kubernetes Agent Detail Page - this interface shows what has been or is being deployed to the cluster. The biggest differentiator of ArgoCD is its UI with similar functionality.
   • Kubernetes Agent Management Interfaces - this interface is needed to provide insights into potential errors in the GitLab - cluster communication.
   • Terraform Registry - having 30% of gitlab.com users using Terraform, and the registry being one of the top user requests, we can not provide only a registry, but we have a direction to provide a unique, premium offering around the registry given the potential usage insights of modules.
2. Looking in the long term, there's no lack of work that requires a full-stack development.
   • ADO in general
   • Usability improvements as we continue to mature our product
   • PaaS like features unlocked via the Kubernetes Agent

Specific issues on hold or being delayed

• "Register a new Agent" UI
• Agent details page
• Design issue to show the synced status of manifest projects
• We don't have an issue for environment boards improvements yet
• Terraform state management
• Group level environment variables - discussion about its frontend requirements

Team structure

The Configure Group is now 7 BE engineers, 1 Engineering Manager, 1 Designer, and 1 Product Manager. Not having a FE engineer hurts or delays our ability to deliver features, impacts our ability to collaborate such as delaying design work and FE work for work that are not as highly prioritized.