How to quickly (and successfully) onboard engineers
No one ever said hiring was easy. As a matter of fact, talent hiring and retention are some of the hardest aspects to get right for any software company. According to a recent article at Developer Pitstop the average engineer will only stay at a job for an average of two years before moving on, and this tenure is shrinking as time goes on. When we look at the average timeline for engineers in a new role we usually see something like: Learning and adaptation (3 / 6 months): Coming to grips with the new company, team, and their processes. Creating value for the organization (6 / 12 months): Adding value to the business by becoming a functioning member of the team. Becoming a role expert (6 / 18 months): Owning the role completely and helping to shape the direction of the team. At GitLab we pride ourselves on an outstanding onboarding process to reduce the amount of time an engineer will spend in the learning and adaptation bracket and accelerate their evolution into the creating value for the organization bracket. We do this for two main reasons: Quicker integration: We aim to have engineers ship production code in less than one week, and fully onboard them in less than three months. Reduce turnover: Engineers who have an awesome onboarding experience tend to stay with the same company longer. The bottom line is that with these benefits, investing in an amazing onboarding process gives you the highest ROI on your hiring initiatives. So, now that we know why we need to ensure we onboard quickly and correctly, let’s talk about how we do it at GitLab. Overview 💯 Before day one 💥 It’s all about the onboarding issue 🥂 Pick the right onboarding buddy 👌 Pair, pair, and more pairing 🖐 All the coffee chats 🤘 Tailor the experience to the role 🚢 Ship some code in a week or less 💬 Let’s get (and give) some feedback 💯 Before day one The best onboarding processes start as soon as the candidate has officially accepted the offer. This is done in a few ways: An onboarding issue is created with tasks for the hiring manager, their buddy, and People Experience (HR). The hiring manager selects the right onboarding buddy for the engineer and communicates expectations (more on this later). The engineer’s accounts (Email, GitLab account, Okta, etc) are created and their hardware is shipped. GitLab reaches out via email to let the candidate know what the onboarding process looks like. The hiring manager reaches out to the engineer via email to set up a coffee chat on Day 1 as the initial process might seem overwhelming. For us, the most important aspect is communication with the engineer to ensure they are set up for success. We provide them with access to their onboarding issue, helpful video guides for getting started, and a primer on how to navigate our handbook like a pro. The reason this is so important is that we know if we stop communicating with the engineer after signing, we are at risk of creating uncertainty, introducing inefficiency, or even losing them to another offer during that time. 💥 It’s all about the onboarding issue At GitLab, our onboarding issue is the most effective tool we have for […]
