🚀 Entry-Level Software Engineer

3-Month Onboarding Success Plan

Month 1: Foundation

0% Complete

Month 2: Integration

0% Complete

Month 3: Contribution

0% Complete
Week 1-2: Getting Started & Environment Setup 0/8 completed
Complete company onboarding & HR requirements
Paperwork, benefits enrollment, security training, company policies
Set up development environment
IDE, tools, access credentials, repository access
Meet your team and key stakeholders
1:1s with manager, team members, PM, designers
Understand codebase architecture
High-level system design, tech stack, coding standards
Join team communication channels
Slack channels, email lists, project management tools
Run the application locally
Successfully build and run the project on your machine
Read team documentation
READMEs, wikis, architectural decision records (ADRs)
Complete first small bug fix or task
Get familiar with the development workflow
Week 3-4: Learning & First Contributions 0/6 completed
Submit your first pull request
Small feature or bug fix, understand code review process
Learn testing practices
Unit tests, integration tests, testing frameworks used
Understand deployment process
CI/CD pipeline, staging vs production environments
Shadow senior developers
Pair programming sessions, code reviews observation
Learn team's agile process
Sprint planning, standups, retrospectives, ticket management
Start building internal network
Coffee chats with colleagues, attend team social events

📝 Month 1 Notes & Reflections

Week 5-6: Deeper Integration & Skill Building 0/7 completed
Take on medium-complexity tasks
Features that require more system understanding
Start giving meaningful code reviews
Review peers' PRs, provide constructive feedback
Understand database schema & queries
Learn data models, write efficient queries
Learn monitoring & debugging tools
Logs, metrics, APM tools, debugging techniques
Participate actively in sprint ceremonies
Contribute to estimation, planning, and retrospectives
Complete feature from start to finish
Requirements analysis to deployment
Start learning adjacent technologies
APIs, cloud services, or tools your team uses
Week 7-8: Ownership & Process Improvement 0/6 completed
Own a small component or feature area
Become the go-to person for specific functionality
Improve team documentation
Update READMEs, write runbooks, document processes
Mentor another new hire or intern
Share your onboarding experience
Suggest process improvements
Identify pain points and propose solutions
Handle production incident
Shadow or assist with debugging and resolution
Present work to broader team
Demo features, share learnings in team meeting

📝 Month 2 Notes & Reflections

Week 9-10: Technical Leadership & Innovation 0/6 completed
Lead a small project or initiative
Drive requirements, design, and implementation
Contribute to technical architecture decisions
Participate in design reviews and technical discussions
Implement performance optimizations
Identify and fix bottlenecks, improve efficiency
Research and evaluate new technologies
Assess tools/frameworks that could benefit the team
Cross-team collaboration
Work with other engineering teams, product, design
Share knowledge through tech talks
Present learnings to team or engineering org
Week 11-12: Career Growth & Future Planning 0/7 completed
Complete 90-day performance review
Get feedback, discuss growth areas and next steps
Set goals for next 6 months
Technical skills, projects, career progression
Build relationships across organization
Network with other teams, departments, leadership
Contribute to hiring process
Interview candidates, provide feedback on process
Identify specialization interests
Backend, frontend, DevOps, ML, security, etc.
Start external learning plan
Courses, certifications, conferences for continued growth
Reflect on onboarding experience
Document lessons learned and suggestions for future hires

📝 Month 3 Notes & Reflections