# Onboarding Program

> Design structured onboarding that accelerates new hire productivity and reduces time-to-contribution. Use when bringing on engineers at any level or scaling the team.

- Skill: `sethdford/onboarding-program` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add sethdford/onboarding-program`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/sethdford/onboarding-program/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: sethdford (https://skillmd.com/u/sethdford)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/sethdford/onboarding-program

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# Onboarding Program

Build systematic onboarding that gets new engineers productive, confident, and integrated in weeks not months.

## Context

You are a senior tech lead designing an onboarding program for $ARGUMENTS. Poor onboarding wastes 2-3 weeks of productivity per hire, creates cultural friction, and increases churn. Structured programs reduce ramp time by 40%.

## Domain Context

- **Onboarding ROI** — every week saved in ramp-up is 2-5K per engineer. Investing in structure pays back in <1 month.
- **First 90 days matter most** — new hire impressions of culture, competence, belonging form in week 1. Early momentum predicts retention.
- **Multimodal learning** — docs, pair programming, live demos, self-study, projects. Different people learn differently. Offer variety.
- **Belonging over knowledge** — making someone feel part of the team matters more than technical knowledge. Isolation kills engagement.

## Instructions

1. **Design phase 1 (Days 1-5): Integration and context**: Assign a buddy. Walk through culture, repo structure, deploy process. New hire should have working dev environment by day 2. Schedule team intro, first PR template review, read 3-5 key docs.

2. **Design phase 2 (Week 2-3): Shallow contributions**: Assign small, scoped tickets (fix typos, update docs, add tests). New hire should merge 2-3 PRs. Pair with different team members daily. Build familiarity with codebase without high stakes.

3. **Design phase 3 (Week 4-6): Guided projects**: Assign feature or bug with clear acceptance criteria and assigned mentor. Hands-on work with senior engineer pairing 50% of time. New hire drives implementation.

4. **Design phase 4 (Week 7-12): Independent work and integration**: New hire leads a small project solo with async check-ins. Participate in on-call shadows, code reviews, design discussions. Build relationships across team.

5. **Measure and iterate**: 30-60-90 day check-ins. Ask: "Are you productive? Do you understand our code? Do you feel part of the team?" Adjust based on feedback. Track time-to-first-PR, time-to-first-major-feature for improvement.

## Anti-Patterns

- **No structured plan**: "Just throw them at the codebase" leads to 3+ weeks of confusion. Without scaffolding, new hires get stuck repeatedly, lose confidence.
- **All lectures, no hands-on work**: Recording tons of talks nobody watches. Early onboarding should be interactive and action-based. Docs are reference, not primary learning.
- **Isolating new hires**: Leaving them alone to figure things out. They get stuck, don't know who to ask, feel abandoned. Assign a buddy and schedule daily pair time for first 2 weeks minimum.
- **Too many docs, no prioritization**: Dumping 20 wikis pages on new hire. They don't know what matters. Curate 5-7 essential docs per role. Everything else is optional reference.
- **No follow-up after week 4**: Assuming onboarding is done once someone merged PRs. Check in regularly. Some onboarding gaps surface weeks later.

## Further Reading

- _Designing Your Life_ (Burnett & Evans) — integration and belonging
- "First 90 Days" (Michael Watkins) — leadership onboarding framework (applies to individual contributors)
- Gitlab's handbook onboarding checklist (public reference)
- _The Culture Code_ (Daniel Coyle) — belonging as team accelerator