Module 2: Hiring and onboarding

Nurturing effective engineering teams

So you’re looking to hire a team filled with talented engineers? And once you’ve hired awesome engineers how do you make sure they stick around?

Hiring and onboarding is complex and time consuming. Retention starts from day one, with a sound onboarding process that sets your engineers up for success and develops into you, providing them with an environment that facilitates learning and self-growth. So how do you make sure you are providing a safe, engaging environment for your engineers?

Module 2 takeaways and homework

You learned

The importance of hiring and how you should think about its potential impacts on the company, the team, and also the person you are hiring. That’s why being clear on the problem you are solving by hiring is key. Always ask yourself – Does hiring really solve that problem, or do you have some other underlying problems that hiring looks like it will solve?

Onboarding requires a thoughtful and structured process that involves a lot of preparedness for you, the manager, the organization, and the team. As you onboard a new hire, the ability to protect that time for your new hire is so important.

Look beyond the 30-60-90 days. Make sure that there is a continuous plan after the new hire has been onboarded. Utilize your peers to help, you are not alone in this process. Communication is key for all of these areas, pay attention to how you are communicating, it tells your new hire what is important to you.

You discussed

As a group, you evaluated your team and/or your organization’s hiring and onboarding process and practices, and you discussed what you would change and how to implement this change in your organization.

You should now be able

Address the problem you’re trying to solve by hiring and identify the long-term impact hiring can have on your organization and on your team
Craft an onboarding strategy that gives clarity and purpose to your new hire
After your new hire is onboarded, convey the values you want them to get from your communication. ie Social, Technical, Detailed

Homework

Sometimes we often forget that onboarding is a two-way street. You’re not just trying to onboard new hires so they can be productive really quickly. You also want to make sure that they understand the organization and see what you stand for. In Julie’s session, you learned how you communicate, tell your new hires what you value, and how you want to communicate.