Boosting developer productivity in GitLab through self serve settings

Transformed Switchboard into a self-service platform, giving users greater visibility into their environments and control over critical infrastructure operations. Read more about Switchboard for Gitlab Dedicated here.

✧   Senior product designer
✧   0 to 1  product
✧   Enterprise B2B SaaS

dedicated

Why Self-Service?

GitLab Dedicated customers relied on operational teams to access information, manage infrastructure and perform critical environment changes. Switchboard was designed to bring these capabilities directly into customers' hands, reducing dependency and improving operational efficiency.

I delivered 3 key initiatives. The main Goal was to boost self serve capability and reduce operational complexity to enabling customers to complete critical tasks independently.

3keys

01 KEY INITIATIVE

Overview dashboard

Designed a centralised view of maintenance activity, service status and key operational information. This enabled internal customers to quickly understand the state of their GitLab Dedicated instance.  Watch live demo  →

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᯽Impact

  • Reduced operational burden by 62%   The overview dashboard decreased the time required to complete routine tasks and the number of interactions needed, minimizing context switching and manual effort for internal teams. It simplified manual tasks, allowing them to focus on higher value work that benefits customers in the long term. 

02 KEY INITIATIVE

Hosted Runners

Enabled customers to provision and manage hosted runners directly within Switchboard. Eliminating the need to manually configure and maintain runner infrastructure.

runners
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᯽Impact

  • 100% self-service provisioning eliminating manual configurations.

  • Contributed to the launch of Hosted Runners for GitLab Dedicated, supporting its progression from beta to limited availability. Read the blog post →
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03 KEY INITIATIVE

Secure geo migrations

Simplified the process of extracting secrets for a secure migration of existing GitLab instances to GitLab Dedicated. Guiding admin users through a complex onboarding workflow with greater confidence.

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Guided flow to extract secrets

Simplified the collection and encryption of migration secrets through a guided step-by-step workflow.

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Self serve upload reducing manual intervention

Enabled administrators to securely upload and validate migration secrets before provisioning their GitLab Dedicated environment.

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᯽Impact

  • 30+ minutes saved per migration   Automated a previously manual onboarding process, reducing environment automation and support team effort while enabling self-service migration.

  • Reduced documentation dependency  Users no longer needed to navigate between multiple docs, scripts and tools to complete migration setup.

Trade off and challenges

⌘  Platform consistency vs delivery constraints 

Switchboard operated on a separate codebase, creating challenges when trying to adopt UX patterns from the broader GitLab platform. These constraints shaped what was feasible, shifting the focus mainly on practical high-impact features. 

⌘  Navigating ambiguity in an early stage technical product   

Switchboard was an early-stage, niche product with evolving requirements. I had to navigate ambiguity, continuously validating assumptions and adapting designs as the product direction became clearer.

⌘  Working beyond the
design system   

Many of Switchboard's infrastructure management workflows didn't fit naturally within GitLab's existing design system. The challenge was in identifying where established patterns could stretch and presenting a compelling case to create new patterns.