The first 14 days set the trajectory for everything that follows. Engineers who are well onboarded in the first two weeks are measurably more effective at 30 days and significantly more effective at 90 days.
All access provisioned: development environment, code repository, staging environment, communication tools, project management system. Onboarding document ready: architecture overview, codebase structure, development workflow. First task identified: a small, well-defined, real task — something that ships to staging by the end of week one.
Days 1-2: architecture walkthrough. Days 3-4: first task. Day 5: week one retro — what did they need that they did not have?
Assign work in an area the engineer will own. Daily 15-minute check-ins are appropriate in week two. The first code review should be detailed — this is where you establish the quality standard.
Access not ready: the engineer loses the first two days waiting. Context not transferred: the engineer understands what the code does but not why. No clear ownership: the engineer is assigned tasks but has no area to call their own. Over-checking: daily standups and frequent check-ins signal distrust before trust is established.
The engineer has shipped at least one feature end-to-end. They know who to ask for what. You are not checking in daily anymore.
Axented handles onboarding support as part of every team augmentation engagement. → axented.com/team-augmentation
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