top of page

20 Essential Steps In Onboarding New Tech Team Members

Writer's picture: Charles MoreyCharles Morey


Expert Panel®

Forbes Councils Member

Forbes Technology Council

COUNCIL POST

Nov 8, 2024


The first few days at a new job can be overwhelming for a tech professional. Not only do they have to get to know their team members and role responsibilities, but they also have to come to grips with projects that may be complex, ever-changing and require new, specialized knowledge.


From helping them become comfortable with the company culture to ensuring they understand the significance of the job they’re taking on, introducing a new tech team member to their role with care and a comprehensive outlook plays a huge role in both their early and ongoing success. Here, members of Forbes Technology Council detail essential steps leaders should take when onboarding new tech team members.


1. Start Slowly

The first step toward successful onboarding is to avoid overwhelming a new tech team member. It’s unrealistic to expect someone to learn everything in a short amount of time and retain it. Starting with limited knowledge transfer and focusing on delivering small, manageable tasks will allow the new member to learn the delivery process and the features at their own pace, ultimately building confidence. - Anoop Gupta, Capital One


2. Help Them Understand Your Customers

Educating team members about the problems we solve for our customers is essential. They need to understand who the customer is, what challenges exist and why, and the key people involved. In addition, team members need information on why we are uniquely placed to solve those challenges. Standardized, repeatable content can help ensure each team member has at least the same baseline understanding. - Alex Ford, Encompass Corporation


Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?


3. Assign Them A Mentor Or Buddy

An essential onboarding step is assigning a mentor or buddy to the new tech team member. This is crucial as it accelerates acclimation, provides personalized guidance on team processes and fosters a sense of belonging. Having a go-to person for questions helps the new hire quickly become productive and engaged, reducing the learning curve in a technical environment. - Sivanagaraju Gadiparthi, ADP


4. Get Their Feedback On The Process

It’s important to have the new member critique the onboarding process and give feedback on how it can be improved. Over time, having each new team member do this will help you improve the onboarding process and bring in diversity of thought. - Dileep Marway, AND Digital


5. Establish Expectations For Soft Skills Development

New tech hires for software engineering roles often possess hard technical skills, like full-stack software engineering capabilities, but companies also must prioritize their soft skills. Establishing expectations around growth in soft skills, such as logic and design creativity, early in the onboarding process helps new hires integrate seamlessly and supports their professional development. - Stephen DeAngelis, Enterra Solutions


6. Immerse Them In The Team’s Culture

Most onboarding focuses on product knowledge, stakeholder introductions and immediate responsibilities. One of the most frequently overlooked aspects of onboarding a new team member is immersing them in the team’s culture, norms and communication channels. Relationship building is often rushed or even overlooked. Also, ensuring they have a clear understanding of how decisions are made is vital for success. - Janani Narayanan, Salesforce


7. Ensure Understanding Of Different Cultural, Technical And Regulatory Nuances

We’re a global company with operations in over 100 countries, so our new technical team members must understand how a local team’s needs affect IT requirements. Our international scope defines our corporate culture and is the foundation for every IT service we provide. Understanding different cultural, technical and regulatory nuances is critical for applying the technical skills new hires bring to the company. - Anne Kottmeier, Chemonics International


8. Explain The End Product’s Value To The Customer

An essential onboarding step is to give new team members a clear understanding of the end product and its value to the customer. Starting with the customer’s perspective helps them work backward, connecting each part of their role to the bigger picture. This approach not only aligns them with the team’s mission, but also fosters empathy, enabling them to contribute more meaningfully to the product. - Sandeep Giri, CloudxLab Inc.


9. Give Them Small Tasks To Set Up Early Wins

The organization I work at has new engineers writing code that gets deployed to customers within their first week. This provides early, small wins and a sense of progress for our newest members. This also forces us to automate more of our onboarding process and put more thought and preparation into having beginner-friendly tasks that are ready to be picked up. - Deepak Bhaskaran, Cisco Systems Inc.


10. Work To Build Trust

Building trust is crucial when onboarding a new tech team member. Assuring them that we value the skills they were hired for and assigning initial tasks that align with those skills helps boost their morale, build their trust in the organization and seamlessly integrate them into the team. - Uma shankar Kulasekaran, Nice Systems


11. Focus On The ‘Why’ Behind The Work

An essential step in our onboarding process is immersing new tech team members in our core customer problems and how our product solves them. This helps them understand the “why” behind their work from day one, ensuring alignment with business goals and user needs. It’s crucial for driving meaningful contributions early on. - Michael Pink, SmartPM Technologies


12. Conduct A Deep Dive Into The Product Architecture

One essential step in onboarding a new tech team member is conducting a deep dive into the product architecture and codebase. This session should cover core components, dependencies and any key integrations the product relies on. This step is crucial because it provides new team members with a strong foundational understanding of how the system works and where they’ll be contributing. - Sridhar Ratakonda, Predactica


13. Equip Them With Needed Context And Resources

An essential factor in onboarding new tech team members is comprehensive knowledge transfer. This ensures newcomers understand the project’s architecture, codebase and best practices from the start, which accelerates integration, reduces errors and boosts productivity. Equipping them with the necessary context and resources helps them contribute effectively and quickly align with the team’s objectives. - Charles Morey, MobilEyes Inc.


14. Do A Structured Codebase Walkthrough

One essential onboarding step is a structured codebase walkthrough. This helps new team members understand the architecture, coding standards and core features. It’s crucial because it accelerates their familiarity with the code, reduces the learning curve and ensures they contribute meaningful work faster. - Rupesh Dabbir, rupeshdabbir.com


15. Develop A Detailed 30-60-90-Day Plan

The most crucial step in my onboarding process is assigning a dedicated buddy for the new team member and creating a detailed 30-60-90-day plan. The buddy provides consistent guidance, while the structured plan sets clear expectations, from understanding core systems in month one to owning smaller projects in month two to independently driving larger initiatives by month three. - Chandra Kuchi, Robinhood


16. Double-Check The Codebase, Repositories And Commits

It’s essential to ensure the codebase is well-organized and that GitHub repositories and commits are fully updated. This step may seem obvious, but startups moving fast tend to overlook it. Double-checking these details enables new team members to integrate smoothly, working with the latest code version from day one. - Belal Shaheen, Coolant Climate, Inc.


17. Frame The Significance Of The Role They’ll Play

Ensure you’re providing orientation on the core issues and goals of the company and framing the significance of the role they play as part of this. Having a strong understanding of why their role exists and what it serves in the greater vision of the company gives a new team member the clarity to approach their work with the necessary awareness required to consistently drive results. - Sidhant Bendre, Quizard AI, Inc.


18. Provide Detailed Information About Your Market And Users

Ensuring that developers gain a deep understanding of our market and user needs is crucial. This begins with immersing our developers in the everyday challenges, preferences and workflows of our target users. By receiving direct exposure to user feedback sessions, detailed market research reports and product analytics, developers are able to grasp the context in which our product operates. - Kamil Debbagh, Poolday.ai


19. Ensure They Have A Perfectly Configured Dev Environment

Your No. 1 onboarding priority is giving new hires a perfectly configured dev environment on day one. “It mostly works” isn’t good enough; it needs to be perfect. I’ve watched countless smart developers waste their first weeks battling environment issues while their enthusiasm drains away. When your new hire sits down on Monday morning, they should have the resources in place to push code by that same afternoon. - Nishant Modak, Last9


20. Create A ‘Collaborative Job Offer’

We create a “collaborative job offer”—a memo where each interviewer shares why they’re excited to work with the new hire and how they see them growing with us. On their first day, we revisit this memo to shape a 30-90-day plan. It grounds the new hire in a clear vision of impact and growth, fostering commitment and alignment from day one. - Sebastiaan Debrouwere, Genie.io


Check out my website

Expert Panel®


Successful CIOs, CTOs & executives from Forbes Technology Council offer firsthand insights on tech & business.

0 views0 comments

Comments


bottom of page