Even though a lot of meetings are mentioned to be optional, you would be casually forced into attending them with management sugar coating words like "obligatory" for words like "encouraged" while carrying the same meaning, making meetings all the more frustrating.

There's no real benefits aside from working from home. The benefits pretty much depends on the lowest possibly provided by the employee's country of residence laws. Just the most basic free app subscriptions that usually cost next to nothing for individual purschase.

Employees are dropping like flies getting fired or resigning with no reporting on it as they are working as contractors and NDAs preventing any legal action against the company. The entire management need to be restructured as people will eventually speak up about it.

The environment is extremely toxically positive to a point where it feels like brain washing. Nothing bad ever happens and criticisms are unwelcomed. Management can get away with any act of aggression or harassment as long as they use the right words and framing for their narrative.

Leadership always say that GitLab is not a democracy and they make it clear that it's a dictatorship run by management where real world preformance doesn't matter and direct managers have total control over employees' future with many suddenly fired or promoted based on word of mouth only.