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This "time on the new guy" ought to only happen once, document the on boarding process. Personally I've never seen a 15 or 20 year guy (yes it's always men at t

This "time on the new guy" ought to only happen once, document the on boarding process. Personally I've never seen a 15 or 20 year guy (yes it's always men at this tenure) take more than a couple of weeks to get productive, 6 months to mastery. That's been my experience at least.

gxs 9y ago
Your experience is probably atypical. Documentation is one of those concepts that can be the answer to any problem, but seldom is. I've yet to work at an organization where everything is documented, the documentation is up to date, and the documentation is of high quality. There are always gaps somewhere in the documentation and in the end it does take time to ramp people up. Now, if you work on project based work and it's always on something different, that's a different story.
- le-mark 9y ago
  Well yeah, the gp specifically said document the on boarding process. A high level architecture overview is all the system documentation required. Personally I ignore all that crap anyway, the truth is in the code and deployments. I don't know how many times I've had to tell the senior, long time employees how their system works.
pgwhalen 9y ago
I’d love to work on a tech stack that can be mastered in six months, with just as much understanding as someone who has been around it for five years.
- pilsetnieks 9y ago
  There are very few companies that have a completely unique tech stack that couldn't have been encountered anywhere else.
  - smcdow 9y ago
    Depends on how similar the domains are. Stacks are vastly different in companies working in disparate domains -- I've worked as a software engineer in C4ISR, gaming, EDA, oil & gas, HFT, remote sensing, consumer electronics, and more. The stacks couldn't be more different & foreign from each other. Like living in different universes. Six months to learn all the moving parts is about right. (I can't imagine a career in only one domain; how boring would that be? Hopefully will be getting a new job in HPC soon.)
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  An experienced developer won't need that amount of understanding to do 99% of the tasks at work, and for the remaining 1% there is documentation (right?). And if that's all your homebrewn stack, something is very wrong there.
- turk184 9y ago
  There is no such thing, not at any of the higher paying roles. I'm 6 months in to a new job right now and although I had some early wins for them, I'm definitely still learning my way through the systems, the people, and the overall organization. There are no shortcuts. 6-12 months is typical. That doesn't mean you should let an ineffective person hang around that long, though. This place fired another developer who started on the same day as I did because he wasn't engaged and showing competent progress.

gxs 9y ago

Your experience is probably atypical. Documentation is one of those concepts that can be the answer to any problem, but seldom is. I've yet to work at an organization where everything is documented, the documentation is up to date, and the documentation is of high quality. There are always gaps somewhere in the documentation and in the end it does take time to ramp people up. Now, if you work on project based work and it's always on something different, that's a different story.

le-mark 9y ago
Well yeah, the gp specifically said document the on boarding process. A high level architecture overview is all the system documentation required. Personally I ignore all that crap anyway, the truth is in the code and deployments. I don't know how many times I've had to tell the senior, long time employees how their system works.

pgwhalen 9y ago

I’d love to work on a tech stack that can be mastered in six months, with just as much understanding as someone who has been around it for five years.

pilsetnieks 9y ago
There are very few companies that have a completely unique tech stack that couldn't have been encountered anywhere else.
- smcdow 9y ago
  Depends on how similar the domains are. Stacks are vastly different in companies working in disparate domains -- I've worked as a software engineer in C4ISR, gaming, EDA, oil & gas, HFT, remote sensing, consumer electronics, and more. The stacks couldn't be more different & foreign from each other. Like living in different universes. Six months to learn all the moving parts is about right. (I can't imagine a career in only one domain; how boring would that be? Hopefully will be getting a new job in HPC soon.)
TeMPOraL 9y ago
An experienced developer won't need that amount of understanding to do 99% of the tasks at work, and for the remaining 1% there is documentation (right?). And if that's all your homebrewn stack, something is very wrong there.
turk184 9y ago
There is no such thing, not at any of the higher paying roles. I'm 6 months in to a new job right now and although I had some early wins for them, I'm definitely still learning my way through the systems, the people, and the overall organization. There are no shortcuts. 6-12 months is typical. That doesn't mean you should let an ineffective person hang around that long, though. This place fired another developer who started on the same day as I did because he wasn't engaged and showing competent progress.