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> it takes a special kind of new hire Yeah, it does. I’ve had a good amount of experience doing this. You need to have tact and a kind of humbleness that can b

> it takes a special kind of new hire Yeah, it does. I’ve had a good amount of experience doing this. You need to have tact and a kind of humbleness that can be difficult to maintain (tbh, it was for me at least). In my most recent experience with this, many of the bugs were unknown. During my ramp up, I read through nearly all of the code I’d be working on and got a good sense of what needed to be done, but the code changes were the easy part. The issue that required more work IMO was navigating the social waters as a new hire. I found that you can use being a new hire to your advantage, eg “hey I was reading through this piece of code and I had a question about XYZ.” Sometimes I’ve felt certain bugs are, for one reason or another, difficult to discuss. One thing I’ve done in cases like this is to refactor a bit of code in a way that makes a subtle bug painfully obvious; then in review, where the reviewers were the original author and reviewer, it’s easier for them to see the bug and say “this looks weird,” to which I respond “ah, yeah, this seems like a bug, I’ll fix this.” The rough part of this is that you can get so good at being the fixer that this becomes all you (ie. maybe you’re not working on new features, etc) which can suck. The bright side is that you can strengthen the team—-everyone gets a chance to build/rebuild context and mental models, design docs can be updated, and the teams foundation gets stronger as a result. Of course, ymmv. As a new hire, I find it important to build trust and relationships.

joshuamorton 5y ago
The best advice I was given (when I was a new hire, by my manager) was something along the lines of "You're smart, and you aren't burdened by tradition or seniority. If you see something that looks weird or confusing, ask about it! No one will hold it against you, and your point of view may keep us from committing to something more complex than it needs to be." I've tried to keep that level of intentional naïveté.
- ErrantX 5y ago
  intentional naivete is such a great way to put it, definitely going to use that going forward :)
cbushko 5y ago
This resonates with me so much as I was in this position 3 years ago. My boss came to me and said "we want to move from AWS to GCP, using kubernetes and not have it be a mess like we have now" I was new, senior, free from ownership. I chose to stay as a team of 1 so that I wasn't burdened with fires and meetings. It freed me up to put my head down and get the work done. The grind was learning GCP, kubernetes, terraform, the platform/product, gathering requirements from several teams and mentoring people that would pop into the project as their time allowed. I won't lie as learning new things was great. The project was partially greenfield as it was a platform migration and not a product rewrite. There were a lot of constraints & debt to deal with. Maybe the new employee churn is one of the reasons that most startups get so much done... the new people are not burdened by ownership and being the subject matter experts. They are free to do things, good or bad. :)
- otabdeveloper4 5y ago
  > we want to move from AWS to GCP Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
  - kakkan 5y ago
    Why do you think GCP is worse than AWS? I've used GCP and found it quite easy to start with and the managed instances was a breeze to set up and deploy stuff. I've done it for only small businesses and they were happy with the results too and the easy to use console made things easier to navigate. Maybe the trouble with GCP comes with scale?
    - otabdeveloper4 5y ago
      I'm strictly against all "cloud" lock-in, but if you're going down that path despite all caveats, then using the #1 cloud provider makes more sense than a third-place competitor from a company that's best known for not having customer service.
      - sangnoir 5y ago
maroonblazer 5y ago
>The rough part of this is that you can get so good at being the fixer that this becomes all you (ie. maybe you’re not working on new features, etc) which can suck. This is where a good manager makes a difference. They're also interested in your professional development. They should recognize the valuable work you're doing, have you train new(er) hires and move you into more senior positions, more interesting work, or both, whichever you prefer.

joshuamorton 5y ago

The best advice I was given (when I was a new hire, by my manager) was something along the lines of "You're smart, and you aren't burdened by tradition or seniority. If you see something that looks weird or confusing, ask about it! No one will hold it against you, and your point of view may keep us from committing to something more complex than it needs to be." I've tried to keep that level of intentional naïveté.

ErrantX 5y ago
intentional naivete is such a great way to put it, definitely going to use that going forward :)

cbushko 5y ago

This resonates with me so much as I was in this position 3 years ago. My boss came to me and said "we want to move from AWS to GCP, using kubernetes and not have it be a mess like we have now" I was new, senior, free from ownership. I chose to stay as a team of 1 so that I wasn't burdened with fires and meetings. It freed me up to put my head down and get the work done. The grind was learning GCP, kubernetes, terraform, the platform/product, gathering requirements from several teams and mentoring people that would pop into the project as their time allowed. I won't lie as learning new things was great. The project was partially greenfield as it was a platform migration and not a product rewrite. There were a lot of constraints & debt to deal with. Maybe the new employee churn is one of the reasons that most startups get so much done... the new people are not burdened by ownership and being the subject matter experts. They are free to do things, good or bad. :)

otabdeveloper4 5y ago
> we want to move from AWS to GCP Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
- kakkan 5y ago
  Why do you think GCP is worse than AWS? I've used GCP and found it quite easy to start with and the managed instances was a breeze to set up and deploy stuff. I've done it for only small businesses and they were happy with the results too and the easy to use console made things easier to navigate. Maybe the trouble with GCP comes with scale?
  - otabdeveloper4 5y ago
    I'm strictly against all "cloud" lock-in, but if you're going down that path despite all caveats, then using the #1 cloud provider makes more sense than a third-place competitor from a company that's best known for not having customer service.
    - sangnoir 5y ago

maroonblazer 5y ago

>The rough part of this is that you can get so good at being the fixer that this becomes all you (ie. maybe you’re not working on new features, etc) which can suck. This is where a good manager makes a difference. They're also interested in your professional development. They should recognize the valuable work you're doing, have you train new(er) hires and move you into more senior positions, more interesting work, or both, whichever you prefer.