Ask HN: How to onboard yourself to a new product/industry in a new job?

> I left that job immediately after the interviews.

Why?

As a freelance software developer, I've worked in finance, law, logistics, pharmaceuticals, cable TV, food sales, and probably a few more I'm not remembering off the top of my head over the years. I provide the best service to my clients when I understand the domain well enough to make suggestions that marry the capability of the computer and the web to their domain. It helps that I have repeat clients often, and referrals within the same industry so I can re-use knowledge from previous contracts, but often I'm working on software for a domain I have no prior knowledge for. So it's a high priority for me to be able to obtain a lot of information about the domain quickly.

Here are my tips:

1. Schedule time to ask questions. Domain experts' time is valuable, and you don't want to be interrupting their other work, so if you can build up a list of questions and schedule a 30 minute period to ask all your questions, that uses their time more effectively, and also gives them the opportunity to take the time to answer the questions you didn't ask. (OP doesn't appear to be a freelancer, but for any freelancers reading this, I don't bill for this time, which helps clients to feel they're getting something worthwhile from it).

2. Ignore "rank". The people on the bottom of the totem pole are often the people who know the most about the domain because they are actually working waist-deep in the domain. There have been cases where I have used my seniority to escalate problems or promote ideas from, say, an intern or junior, that were likely more valuable than the development work I was getting paid for. When you do this, be sure to give credit where it's due--people remember that sort of thing.

3. There comes a point somewhere in the 3-6 month mark at a job, where I start getting a lot of anxiety because I feel like I should understand the domain better than I do. This has never, in my experience, been anyone else's expectation. It's just impostor syndrome.

Look at the training materials, and look up every word in them. research until you can give an example of how everything is used.

There are probably old time finance people running the company ir advising it. Find out what they did back in the day and look at things from that point of view.

I have a simple method that worked well for me in my last job, where I switched industries completely and was definitely underwater. First I became friends with everyone I could. Then identified the most mature teammate with the most tenure, and the smartest teammate who clearly generated the most value for the company.

Anytime I got stuck on a problem for more than a few hours, I asked the greybeard for a quick chat. He was pretty always willing to hear me out, let me break down my understanding, then rebuild all my faulty assumptions. His time was relatively cheap but his knowledge base relatively valuable, so with him I did deep dives.

The smart hacker guy I watched from a distance. Any time I saw him merge some ludicrous Rube Goldberg type commit I’d send him a quick DM, knowing his time was precious. I’d fire off a few quick questions and try to glean as much insight into his critical work before he scurried off to the next apparently invaluable task.

I think approaching the problem this way, leveraging the “implicit theories” embedded in the teammates heads, is the surest and most efficient way to ramp up, besides the obvious advice like RTFM and gloss over the relevant textbooks. Always remember to make yourself useful first. No accomplished engineer will ever turn down a well intentioned and friendly favor! “Team work makes the dream work,” as they say.

Good luck!

Take my advice with a grain of salt, but:

Get a ChatGPT4 subscription and ask away. It may hallucinate, but it lets you ask questions and immediately clarify points you don't understand. When you get the basic understanding, check it against a more reputable source (e.g. Investopedia?)

Here's an example question (which I obviously made up):

"Hi! I'm about to get a job in finance but I feel that I don't fully understand some of the important concepts, such as compound interest. Can you explain compound interest to me?"