What Leo saw at Sourcegraph, 4. Five approvals in a row, and then a sixth
A Sourcegraph job offer passed five approvers one after another, then was typed again for signature. Leo suggested approving in parallel. In 2023 Sourcegraph added a sixth approver. Some processes are slow on purpose, and Leo's card records that too.
We gave Leo Sourcegraph's public handbook exactly as it stood on 31 December 2021, and nothing later.
Sourcegraph had no part in this
We used Sourcegraph's handbook because it is public and openly licensed (Apache 2.0). Sourcegraph did not take part, and nothing here is Sourcegraph's view of Leo. Every quote below links back to Sourcegraph's own pages and commits.
The claims, and where to check them
| Claim | Where to check it |
|---|---|
| A job offer passed five approvers one after another, then was requested again in Slack and prepared separately for signature | Sourcegraph's offer page, 31 Dec 2021 (the page at that commit) |
| On 30 June 2023 the CEO was added as a final approver | Sourcegraph's commit 56e36da9 |
| In mid 2024 the letter was still requested in Slack and sent separately | Sourcegraph's offer page, June 2024 |
The work as it was
Making an offer at Sourcegraph was careful. The handbook set out the chain: "Approval chain: Talent Team Manager (if applicable) > VP Talent > Hiring Manager > Department Head > VP Operations." Five people, one after another. Once the candidate said yes, the recruiter made "a formal request in the Slack channel talent-scheduling-and-offers for an offer letter to be sent via DocuSign," and someone else prepared it.
What Leo saw
Leo joined the recruiting steps with the approvers and the letter, and saw an offer waiting on five people in turn, then the same offer typed again for signature.
The ways forward
- Redesign: approve in parallel. Each approver sees the same offer at once, so it waits on the slowest, not on all five.
- Eliminate: the letter writes itself. The approved offer produces the letter for signature, and the Slack request goes.
What happened next
- 2022 and 2023. The chain was edited more than once; people were added to it.
- 30 June 2023. The CEO became the final approver.
- Mid 2024. The approvals still ran one after another, and the letter was still requested in Slack.
Sourcegraph went the other way: more care, not less. For a company deciding who joins, that can be exactly right, and the handbook made the choice in the open. Leo's card records the path it did not offer and keeps its own ways on the table.
What this does not show
How long offers took, or how many were lost to the wait. It shows a deliberate process that grew, and the typing that stayed beside it.
Leo learns how a business really runs by reading what its people write and talking with them, lays out the ways the work could go, side by side, and keeps the choice with the people who make it. When they take a path, its card records it, including one Leo did not offer.