Onboarding not Technology

Onboarding is a key activity of technical mangers and leaders. It’s not the responsibility of HR, and its certainly not simply setting up the dev environment. In my experience, onboarding should result in the following: Positive relationships with the the developer’s team. Introductions to the project stakeholders. Clarity about the team’s current goals, and key upcoming projects. Clarity about the team’s values. Knowing who to go for help, and how often it’s okay to ask for help. First-hand experience with the teams development process and ceremonies (agile, scrum, stand-ups, retros, etc). First-hand experience with the key communication channels (team meetings, 1:1s, etc). Having received a piece of adjusting and affirming feedback from their manager. Having given a piece of adjusting and affirming feedback to their manager and teammates. 

A clear sense of the tech and infrastructure used by the team. Having a working dev environment How long should this take? It should take you, the manager, at least a few weeks to initially onboard a new developer. After that, expect it to take few quarters (3–9 months) for them to “come up to speed.” Of course, this will wildly vary according to the kind of projects you are working on. I’ve led teams where I spent a year onboarding a dev to work on a large ERP system. You might have experienced even longer. Onboarding is important leadership work which you need to be actively involved with. Like other work, you don’t have to do it all yourself, but you need to make sure it all gets done, and done well. Onboarding sets the stage for many years of productive work. Don’t shortchange your team by pretending it’s just about tools, paperwork, or diversity videos. It’s about intentionally getting the right relationships in place from day one, which are the key to a productive development team.