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Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior engineer?

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Re: Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior engineer?

#11

Post by jonnycoder »

jkingsman wrote: post #6

Keep lab notes! I keep detailed daily notes of what I've learned, code I've run, what my todo list is, etc. in markdown. Getting in the daily habit helps you not go "eh I don't need notes for this" and is a GODSEND come review time when you need to write a self eval. When I onboarded at a larger (10k people) company, I asked my manager for people who did a similar role to me across the company and asked for a fifteen…

Notes are extremely helpful, including those about coworkers you meet. Write down every detail during or after your meeting. Use a mind map program (miro works ok).

With the power of LLMs, notes will be even more helpful as we come up with more innovative ways to parse our daily lives.

Re: Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior engineer?

#12

Post by nimblegorilla »

franktankbank wrote: post #2

I'd say pay very close attention to who does what, literally write it down, what people say they do, what you observe them doing. Try to make no impact, as close to zero as possible. Two weeks later try again to assess who does what. Does it agree. Who changed? Why do you think something is different, why did some things stay the same? Repeat. You will naturally come into contact with most important people trying to…

> My point is that I rarely don't regret (for my careers sake) jumping in and delivering (obvious to me heh heh) value right away because I see the code I see where it ought to be and the new boss is really eager to see somethin, but I'm steamrolling toes and throwing elbows in eyes that I was entirely unaware of. I guarantee the people you will work with do not see you as a senior for some time, any misstep is a case against your status,

This is the best advice. And truly senior level people have been around long enough to see a lot of mid-level "senior" developers shoot themselves in the foot. I've also been on a lot of projects where bad practices aren't so bad because the team has strengths in other areas, and also best practices which collapse because the team has other deficiencies holding them back.

Re: Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior engineer?

#13

Post by c16 »

Go in, set up your laptop. Take notes, update the welcome docs, and provide it to the team to consider merging in. Don't go in trying to change everything on day 1. Listen. Provide useful advice. Start providing value. Meet everyone, and understand how they like to work and be managed. Do you need to manage up? Down?

Re: Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior engineer?

#15

Post by ericmcer »

clandry94 wrote: post #9

In a senior role, you'll spend more time working with people who aren't developers. PMs, designers, managers, etc. In your first few weeks, book a little bit of time to meet them. They'll appreciate the forwardness, you'll quickly expand your network in the company, and it can be the start of a good working relationship that pays off 3-6 months later.

Yeah this is the biggest difference imo. You have to play the game at the senior+ level, that means no more just doing tasks and then sitting back. You have to reach out to people and schedule meeting, you have to be speak up during team meetings, you have to do tech talks and demos.

Upper management has no idea what anyone is doing, they will make layoff/promotion decisions that seem insane from the ground floor, so make yourself visible. I legit am still at my current role because of one demo I did that caught the CTOs eye. I was demoing something that took me maybe ~2 days and was relatively minor in my teammates eyes, but it got my name on his radar so I made the cut.

Re: Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior engineer?

#16

Post by hiddencost »

You're going to enter a complex political environment that has developed over years.

Start humble, ask questions, don't alienate anyone, set up 1:1s with lots of people where you ask them for their perspective and advice. Listen listen listen.

Figure out who might be threatened by you and earn their trust.

Re: Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior engineer?

#17

Post by Joel_Mckay »

scarface_74 wrote: post #10

Context: I was an early strategic technical hire by a director/manager/CTO 3 times to help execute process changes and lead new initiatives healthcare SaaS companies between 2014-2020 and then started working in strategic cloud consulting since then where I am brought in to get developer, operations and the “business” to be better aligned and/or to lead new initiatives. I’m currently a “staff software architect” at a…

In general, some spend a large portion of that part of their career cleaning up dysfunctional projects.

i.e. the entrenched incompetence and hype-driven career-butterflies left the firm with a smoldering pile of wishful thinking.

Sometimes, one can slowly migrate to something standard, sustainable, and reliable... Yet if the product is an established code base, it usually means entry level jobs become a glorified Janitor with a digital mop.

Due to the sunk cost fallacy, one usually won't be allowed to fix the core problems even if relatively trivial. =3

Re: Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior engineer?

#19

Post by scarface_74 »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #17
scarface_74 wrote: post #10

Context: I was an early strategic technical hire by a director/manager/CTO 3 times to help execute process changes and lead new initiatives healthcare SaaS companies between 2014-2020 and then started working in strategic cloud consulting since then where I am brought in to get developer, operations and the “business” to be better aligned and/or to lead new initiatives. I’m currently a “staff software architect” at a…

In general, some spend a large portion of that part of their career cleaning up dysfunctional projects. i.e. the entrenched incompetence and hype-driven career-butterflies left the firm with a smoldering pile of wishful thinking. Sometimes, one can slowly migrate to something standard, sustainable, and reliable... Yet if the product is an established code base, it usually means entry level jobs become a glorified Jan…

> i.e. the entrenched incompetence and hype-driven career-butterflies left the firm with a smoldering pile of wishful thinking.

Luckily I’m at point of my career where I have nothing left to prove and my success metrics that I take to any company is that I can show I am “smart and gets things done”.

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/10/25/the-guerrilla-guid...

And I can work at a staff (smaller companies) or at least a senior (BigTech) level of “impact”, “scope” and “dealing with ambiguity “.

https://www.levels.fyi/blog/swe-level-framework.html

I spent years railing against “Kubernetes everywhere”. But now it’s my go to for anything that’s even slightly complicated with multiple services. But still keep my databases, cache clusters, etc off of it.

If it’s a monolith, just use GitHub actions or Jenkins. Again something standard

It’s a known standard, it’s cross cloud (for the most part) and it works on prem. You can find people that know it easily and it’s easy to recruit career oriented people who want to know Kubernetes or who already know it.

It’s just like standardizing on React on the front end.

Re: Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior engineer?

#20

Post by lmeyerov »

Assuming not management track:

- Make a token commit day 1 or 2 to show you can and will deliver, even if just docs. Ensure you can go end-to-end on a real code PR week 1, even if a trivial one. Identify which area of code is most important for you to learn, vs not learn, and focus there.

- Get agreement on week 1 / month 1 / q1 goal for you+team+co with your direct peers, manager, skip level. Assuming a startup, also with CEO. Meet associated peers, like if an eng mang, other eng manga, and if a startup, head of X, Y, Z.

- Learn the business & product, eg, use it + shadow sales/marketing meetings.

- Observe culture and start acting: your first 30-90d is when you can make some changes by power and set tone, but doing any in weeks 1-2 are generally presumptuous as means you don't care about existing people & their earned & lived experienced. Change depends on seniority, eg, less senior can mean just adding better linting.

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