1–10 of 21 posts
I am about to start a new job working on a huge established code base. The existing team is about 15-20 people and am going to be joining as a staff engineer. I have been thinking about what would my initial days/weeks look like outside of the companies onboarding meetings.
Do you setup 1-1s with everyone on the team? How do you go about figuring out the right areas to contribute? How should I work on building relationships in the initial days?
good luck.
Another idea could be to just look at recent merge requests to find what recent code changes were
In order to avoid being annoying, these days I write out my questions in long-form with context, steps taken, etc. which may or may not be worthwhile but it makes me feel better about it. Sometimes, however, I will post this super long question in our Slack channel and the whole problem was a tiny little thing I forgot to do. Asking questions is just awkward, so I put extra effort into embracing that. Hopefully it doesn't backfire. So far, so good.
Definitely do one-on-ones with all your teammates even if it seems pointless. Most of your interactions with them will not be noteworthy, but it's all about the few exchanges that are.
But generally, you want to start small, on tasks that will expose you to the ins and outs of the codebase, and you want another more experienced dev to be ‘on call’ to help you out when you get stuck for the first few sprints. That’s the kind of support you wanna look for.
I started my first corporate dev job about 8 months ago and the most effective thing for me has been asking nonstop questions. I can't say with certainty that nobody has been annoyed, but nobody has said so yet. In fact, my manager has praised my question-asking habits and I've gotten good reviews so far. In order to avoid being annoying, these days I write out my questions in long-form with context, steps taken, etc…
This helps future me easily find answers to the same questions when I end up having them again, and can eventually serve as documentation when even newer people come into the company.
I've also been taking exquisite notes (online, so searchable), including the same type of long-form links so that even if I have to leave a task for a month, future me can come back to it and pick up the thread immediately.
Taking these notes does slow me down a bit in the short run but I find it is invaluable in the long run.
I mean - a good job will ramp you up. But generally, you want to start small, on tasks that will expose you to the ins and outs of the codebase, and you want another more experienced dev to be ‘on call’ to help you out when you get stuck for the first few sprints. That’s the kind of support you wanna look for.
I wonder if I will ever work at a good job. That would be pleasant.
I mean - a good job will ramp you up. But generally, you want to start small, on tasks that will expose you to the ins and outs of the codebase, and you want another more experienced dev to be ‘on call’ to help you out when you get stuck for the first few sprints. That’s the kind of support you wanna look for.