That's true, and I do find the semi-celebratory tone a bit self-congratulatory. That's why I think team-member-1 still being promoted is the most important factor at play.

It wasn't our intention to come accross as self-congratulatory but I can see how it might come accross as such. We take this incident really serious and especially our production engineers are working very hard to improve our infrastructure.

I actually think the openness is very important as well. Many companies(/C levels/managers/employees/clients/etc) are still stuck in the "heads must roll" mindset, where a mistake is punished rather than used as a learning experience for the employee and for the company.

I think at the very least it'll turn the heads of a few employees that are living in fear of being fired for a typo by showing them there are still decent employers left in the field.

An ordinary company would not disclose so much details about the outage. GitLab's openness required them to do so, and they had no choice but posting these "lighthearted commentaries" about people involved. The amazing thing about the event is their level of openness.