New Job? Do these 8 things!

We have all been there before, you are starting a new job this week, month, even year. How do you make sure you set yourself up for success? I have curated 8 tips for getting started in a new role that I hope will help you get comfortable and ready to kick some butt in your new gig!

1. Learn/understand the business of your company
   Learn why the company is paying you to do what you do. Having a solid understanding of how your business/product works will be extremely valuable as an engineer. Knowing why you are adding this if statement or why this logic needs to be added will allow you to not only build a better product but will also give you the confidence to make suggestions and impact the business. Any company worth working for would love for an engineer to make a business or product recommendation.

2. Get your machine set up for success.
   Some companies have a pretty heavy duty technical onboarding process with mandated technologies/tools like IDEs, others don't. The key is to set up your machine in a way that will make you the most productive and successful. Take setup seriously and ask questions if you need help. Nobody likes the new person who can't get their machine setup, it's not a good look.

3. Dig In
   You don't need to understand the entire codebase (nor should you be expected to), but spend some time digging around. Look for general patterns, understand the high-level architecture, spend some time with the data models to understand the main "domains".

4. Find a low priority bug or //TODO
   This is a great way to get an understanding of the codebase and get your feet wet. A lot of tech companies have a badge of honor of sorts for getting a PR in your first day. I am not saying this is a must, but finding something that can be easily tackled will be a great way to make an awesome first impression. My goal was to get to PR in my first day in my current job, I failed, took me three days. Some companies have expectations of not even writing any code for days to weeks, feel out your new org.

5. Write some unit tests
   This will help you familiarize yourself with the code and could potentially be an easy way to knock out your first PR. Also, everyone loves an engineer who places emphasis on testing.

6. Build rapport with your colleagues
   Learn about their work, what are they working on? How long have they been on the team? Are there anythings you should know about their work? Also, and perhaps more importantly, learn about them as a person. Where did they work before this? Where are they from? Any hobbies? Ask about their family, people like talking about themselves. These are now the people you will spend ~33% of your life with.

7. Ask questions!
   Now is the only time you have an official license to ask anything you want. Take advantage of that.

8. Stay grateful
   Congrats on your new job, you are going to do awesome! Stay grateful and curious. In no-time, you will be a jaded engineer :)

Did I miss anything? If so please let me know!

Thank you very much and good luck!

Comments

[Jean-Michel 🕵🏻‍♂️ Fayard]

Nice article, I agree on all points.

Get your machine set up for success. Take setup seriously.

On a tactical level, getting this out of the way is key in my opinion.

If you don't, you will waste so much time in the first week that you will hardly be in a good position to do everything else.

So I would invite everyone to research what practical things he can do to not fuck up here.

Some suggestions:

• Send an email to the company asking how this is supposed to work before your first day
• Ask your colleagues what are the most important tools that they are using
• E.g. on macOS you can ask them to do $ brew list && brew cask list => brew.sh/
• Manage your dotfiles dotfiles.github.io/
• Personally I am doing this: github.com/jmfayard/dotfiles

[Zachary R. Lupstein]

Thanks! Really like your suggestions as well!