I agree with pretty much all the OP has to say. In my experience, onboarding is something that is usually an afterthought, if it is considered at all. Which i

I agree with pretty much all the OP has to say. In my experience, onboarding is something that is usually an afterthought, if it is considered at all. Which is why, when starting from scratch as CTO at two companies, I set it as a top priority from day one. In both instances, onboarding was optimized as much as possible. In one company, we used Okta, and 90% of accounts needed to be productive (Git, Jira, Confluence, the HR system, etc) were auto-created prior to the start date. We reduced, as much as possible, the need to manually create or request access to needed systems. Instead, based on your job function, we already knew what you would need access to and automatically made those requisitions. I realize this is easier to do when you are starting from scratch, but it demonstrates that it is feasible. It’s simply a matter of will and valuing the importance of a smooth onboarding experience. After all, you spent a ton of time and money finding this candidate - why not get them productive as fast as possible? Setting up the development environment was also scripted. We had scripts for setting up and installing the tools needed for frontend and backend development. Common aliases and scripts were shared via a shared “dot files”. In most cases, it was possible to checkout the relevant repos, run unit tests, commit code and deploy to production on the first or second day. There is no reason one can’t have all you need ready to go on day one. Certainly things get out of date as time passes, but the expectation of every new hire was to improve the documentation and fix any flaws. This “onboarding as code” mentality also made it easier when an experienced engineer needed to set up a new laptop. Documentation is like a garden - it needs to be constantly weeded and pruned. Finally, there’s the matter of learning the tech stack, code base and current toolset. Again, this needs to be a deliberate, well thought out experience rather than an ad-hoc, thrown into the deep-end of the pool, sink-or-swim challenge. A manager needs to make it their top priority to figure out how to get new employees (or internal transfers) up to speed and confident as quickly as possible. This requires special skills in writing good documentation and figuring out the various learning styles of engineers. I agree - if you onboard, and struggle getting code to compile, can’t find the right documentation about how things work - then it sours your experience with the company. In some cases it feels like onboarding is a struggle and it’s a badge of honor to have survived. That you “made it through” and “paid your dues.” This may work with certain engineers, but I don’t think it is healthy or wise.