Onboarding That Goes Beyond Setting Up a Dev Environment

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

At one company I joined, my onboarding consisted of a laptop, a Confluence page titled “Getting Started,” and a Slack message saying “let us know if you need anything.” At another, I had a structured first week with an assigned buddy, a schedule of introductions, and a 30/60/90-day plan. The difference in how quickly I became effective was enormous, and it had almost nothing to do with the technical setup.

Your First 90 Days as an Engineering Leader

Mon, 14 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The first 90 days in a new leadership role are simultaneously the most important and the most disorienting period of your tenure. Everything feels urgent. Everyone has opinions about what you should focus on. And the temptation to prove yourself by making immediate changes is almost irresistible.

Having started new leadership roles at both start-ups and large corporates, I can tell you that the single most valuable thing you can do in those first 90 days is slow down. Not because urgency isn’t real, but because acting on incomplete understanding almost always creates more problems than it solves.

Onboarding on guy@secdev.uk

Onboarding That Goes Beyond Setting Up a Dev Environment

Your First 90 Days as an Engineering Leader