Stage 2 of 8 · 8 lessons · ~3 weeks
The first two weeks
Get your environment working, agree what success looks like, find your way around the codebase and people, and learn to ask for help in a way people are glad to answer. The goal is one small change merged and a lot written down.
Start: Agreeing your onboarding planLessons· one lesson for each topic, in this order
- 1Agreeing your onboarding planLesson
- 2Getting your development environment workingLesson
- 3Reading an unfamiliar codebaseLesson
- 4Following one feature end to endLesson
- 5Asking good questions, at the right timeLesson
- 6Finding a buddy and meeting the teamLesson
- 7Taking notes you will actually reuseLesson
- 8Shipping your starter taskLesson
Do this
- Ask your manager what success looks like at 30, 60 and 90 days and write it in a shared document.
- Get the code building and tests passing locally, and fix at least one gap in the setup guide.
- Trace one user-facing feature through the code and draw a rough map of the files it passes through.
- Agree with your team how long to try on your own before asking for help.
- Book short introductions with each teammate and the product, design or QA people you work with.
- Start a working notes document with sections for commands, terms, owners and open questions.
- Get your starter task merged and write down every step of the path to production.
Start with· follow one of these
- GuideFreeHow to Ask Good Questions (Julia Evans)
Julia Evans · Beginner
A fifteen-minute read that changes how you ask for help from day one
- BookPaidThe Missing README: A Guide for the New Software Engineer
Chris Riccomini and Dmitriy Ryaboy (No Starch Press) · Beginner · $29.99 print, $23.99 ebook
The chapters on getting to competence and working with code match these two weeks closely
Practise
Keep handy
Also worth your time
Before moving on: A working local environment with the setup document improved, a written 30, 60 and 90-day plan agreed with your manager, a working notes document with a glossary, and your first small change merged.
Nobody expects you to understand the codebase in week one. They expect you to ask good questions and write things down. The new joiners I remember best fixed the setup guide as they went, so the next person had an easier start. That is a real contribution in week one.