I did something very similar when I joined my last team. I like Anna's questions. One of the questions I asked was 'who do you go to for advice and bouncing ideas off'. This gave me a great view of the key knowledge nexus points and how people are connected to each other in the team.
After I'd spoken to everyone, I created a report for the executive committee summarizing all topics that had come up multiple times, and highlighting individuals that were widely relied on.
> This is confidential. If you say something about someone else I’m not going to go and tell them.
Warning to all of you in non-managerial position: be very wary of confidentiality proclamations. It happened to me that my manager ran immediately to the CEO, when I said I'm going to start looking for a new job in 3-6 months time. I told him that I specifically don't want this information to leak, but yeah, everybody knew it by the next working day.
Lesson learned: never tell anything sensitive or important in your 1-on-1s with the manager. Except pleasantries, hobbies and other useless stuff.
Very true. For me saying this conversation is confidential has a negative connotation. It raises some flags like:
1. Are we going to talk about something which we can't broadly address?
2. How do I trust someone new on the team to actually keep things confidential, what have they done to earn my trust?
3. I'm going to be more guarded about what I say, because now I'm thinking this person will probably want to misconstrue what I'm saying to their benefit.
Talking about career conversations. I wouldn't tell anyone about my career plans until the day I have to. In my experience telling people early has no tangible benefit.
From a managerial perspective, here is my issue: I want people to feel comfortable coming to me with issues and concerns. That is important in terms of doing good management. Yet if someone revealed something to me that is highly reportable, I may need to act on it. I'm primarily thinking HR issues, but can easily think of others.
One way to manage this is to have the casual conversation, and then in a separate 'official' conversation broach only that issue with the employee.
But yeah--highly recommend building relationships with managers before talking about career plans outside company. Career plans inside your company is a different deal. If you have a useful manager who actually is invested in the growth of the team, it is a great opportunity. (growth = expertise, not growth = number of direct reports)
Workplace these days is a minefield. If you have to talk to someone, only talk about what needs to be talked about and nothing more. Preferably also try to record every interaction or at least run a diary - location, time, who, few bullet points describing the encounter plus some additional facts - what was in the room? was there anyone else? how they looked like? in what manner the person talked to you? and so on. You will thank yourself later if it turns out you were working with a snake.
would you say that you trusted your manager enough not say anything or were you just venting and maybe revealed too much?
For me, potential job changes is the only thing I will lie about to a current manager.
I appreciate that a manager might be concerned about losing staff but if half the team have gone due to very clear changes in the way things are run (dictated from above), why would I be any different?
I have done that in my previous two jobs. And I find it easier to do as soon as I join a new company than later. Once I get involved in projects it requires more effort to get the time. And to know everyone and their opinions is very important to get up to speed. The views of managers/product/developers/testers are not perfectly aligned. Also, it is a great opportunity to understand the views of the less vocal members of the teams. Finally, it is important to present yourself, so people have an easier time to rise any concerns when they arise.
Sadly, right now, I am technical leader for too many teams but once the situation is solved (we are hiring a new architect) my focus is on getting more regularly in contact with all teams and not just the ones working on the topics that require my attention. There are always small things that go unsaid unless done in a one on one.
One year later, I repeated - just for three teams - the ones on ones and asked for personal feedback and the general "Is there anything you think I should know about?" again. It was very insightful, and I was able to get more into the nuance of the people's views as I had more knowledge about the company.
I recommend, if you have the opportunity, to go to training on coaching. I got the training as a manager several years ago, and I found that type of training very useful for all positions and an important part missing in the software engineering curriculum. It is very difficult to help to solve technical problems without knowing the views of the people that would design and implement the details of the system. Spending time to create rapport it always pays off, and - for me - it is something fun to do.
Knowing that engineering teams are overloaded most of the time, I've got that question for first 1:1s: "If you have a week without having to closing tickets, what would you do for the project?" Those are not necessary an items for my to-do list, but clearly showing people's priorities and what they think is really important.
At a "lower" level, I've done something a bit along those lines when starting at my last job: I picked a bunch of people from each team at the company and reached out to them to schedule a one-on-one about them, the way they see things, their experience so far, their team, and a short introduction on my part.
It wasn't about trying to be ten steps ahead of anything or about taking any statement as absolute truth, but to understand different perspectives, to explain in quick and simple terms the reason why I had joined and in what ways I could help them, and to establish those contacts to facilitate future interactions. Every single discussion was worthwhile, because I understood a lot about the company really quickly (which helped me in my work) and every time an issue came up I could easily feel empowered to connect with those people and be put in touch with the right person, or to hear the non-official stuff that is sometimes harder to share across teams and therefore help the team with a little bit more personality than by slinging tickets across boards.
Assuming you're not working in a place with an overwhelming amount of psychopaths (which I assume is a reasonable goal for the majority of people), I would say that caring about other people does pay back quickly and significantly (as shallow as that might sound).
As a software developer, being introduced only to the managers and not the team as part of the interviewing process is one of the biggest red flags (except during social distancing times, of course). Picking up the vibe is an excellent way to know whether I'll be able to contribute as much as possible. It doesn't have to be time consuming at all; simply joining a standup should be plenty.
For example, are the tech lead and managers listeners or talkers? Do they solve problems, delegate them or ignore them? Is the team as a whole enthusiastic about the work? Are there rock stars, cowboys, social justice warriors, dominant/submissive personalities, blamers, micromanagers or virtue spiralists? A little bit of even several of these is probably inevitable in any team, but it's possible to take any one of these to a toxic level.
Don't know why this is being downvoted, its right on. I need to know I'm working for, but I also need to know who I'm working with.
Probably can't actually peg all potential problem team members, but getting a chance to do so is valuable and shows good will on the part of the employer.
I guess some people are upset at the characterisation of "social justice warriors" as a negative. Don't really want to get into the politics part - but that's kind of the point. There is a place for politics at work, when it can alleviate genuine suffering, but advertising which in-group you belong to isn't it. That goes for both sides of the political divide.
I've had bosses occasionally call me in for these types of open questions. It's really useful. But there's also a bit of mystery to when it happens and why it is not equally distributed across the team. There's a bit of "teacher's pet" anxiety associated with it.
There's another thing that can happen in these confidential conversations which she was not in a position to do at this point... Sometimes the boss can explain the political landscape he/she finds themselves in, such that you can contribute better insights to help them protect your team.
Would a similar strategy be valuable for an IC (individual contributor) joining a new team? For example, setting up 1-on-1 meetings with direct teammates soon after joining.
> With a team of ~50, that’s a lot of hours, and I was also working four days a week so each meeting takes up a greater proportion of time.
At thirty minutes a pop these meetings come out to 25 hours. That does not strike me as “a lot of hours” given that this is talking to everyone who works in your department. Put another way is like a sanity check on the biggest and most important category of your department’s budget, at roughly 1% of your annual time.
At the exec level, a good 70-80% of your time is probably unable to budge, so 25 hours of discretionary time _is_ a big investment - probably most of your discretionary time for a calendar month. It sounds like it was well worth it though.
With remote working becoming so prevalent the thought has crossed my mind about what it might be like to start a new job without having much contact with most people who work there.
Seems like it would be harder to become friends with coworkers, or easy feel isolated in your work (particularly outside of software development).
My company is fully remote. I schedule a 30 minute 1:1 social call with a random colleague once a week. I find this is a good balance for me personally -- it ensures I get enough social contact (in addition to my other meetings and 1:1s with my managers) but it's not a huge chunk of my work week taken up.
On the calls we talk about random stuff like our hobbies, what's going on in our lives, what we did this week. Occasionally we talk a bit about work but we usually try to keep it as socially focused as possible.
I've found that it contrasts well with the typical situation of being in an office. In office I find there is continuous social interaction, but it can be more shallow (banter, quick chat, etc), whereas a 1:1 format like this allows you to develop a deeper connection with each person and have more nuanced discussions.
Perfect timing. I just joined a company this past week as a software engineer. Day one, I knew 5 people, only topically. By the end of week 1, I have introductions/1:1s scheduled for 30+ top-notch people at the organization. Here's the method I used to do this:
I created a really comprehensive intro email about myself (work stuff, personal stuff, passions, etc). I wrote this in Google Docs, so it would be easy to paste into Gmail, and preserve the nice formatting. In this email, I included several questions (see below), which I wanted to ask the person. I got these questions from a few sources, including "The first 90 Days" book, along with some other questions I found through Google. At the end of the email, I marked in bold: Suggest 3 other amazing people for me to connect to, and why you recommend them.
I sent the emails out, and got replies within 1-2 days - 75% provided me with 3 names! If some did not provide me with names, I politely followed up with warm, thankful email, but also a reminder to please send me name, which each of them did.
I then sent out "cold" emails to THOSE people, starting with "X person said to reach out you" (helping bring a familiar name immediately at the beginning of the email). I used the exact same email template for that, along with asking for more names.
I used a Google spreadsheet to keep track of all the people I reached out with, along with columns for questions, the people they referred, and who referred them.
At current, I have 15 1:1s scheduled for next week, and tentatively 5-10 scheduled for the week after. I'm using labels in Gmail to flag "@ Waiting" for the people who have not responded, so that I can follow up after a few days.
In the meeting invites I sent to folks, I included the agenda items in the description, so it was top-of-mind for them, as they checked their calendar.
I'm using a note taking tool called Obsidian (https://obsidian.md/) to take notes on all the conversations I'm having with people. This tool lets you write in markdown, and quickly crosslink topics (like a personal wiki). The goal is to create a knowledge base of information, based on all the "here's what you need to know" topics that people share with me.
Finally (and important). I made sure to set expectations with my manager before doing this. I basically told him: (1) I am going to setup conversations with many people this first 2 weeks of work. (2) I will use this output of these conversations to build a learning plan of topics which these people suggest focusing on, (3) I will then synthesize these notes, and will share them with you (manager). (4) You and I will review the learning plan, and prioritize it together. (5) We will use this plan, along with our weekly 1:1s to build out a 30/60/90 day plan.
This was important, because it allowed me to "buy time" before being thrown into a million meetings, assignments, etc. Each person I have spoken to so far has had different suggestions on what the first several things to focus on, learn, etc are. However, they have all been incredibly valuable - and in many cases, they are things I would not have immediately known to even list down.
The great part about this approach (in my opinion), is that all of the people I'm meeting are essentially pre-selected for awesomeness by someone awesome. All of the conversations have been enormously valuable.
The feedback I've gotten from the people has been really great, and validating!
Bonus: I have been using an app called UpHabit (https://uphabit.com/), which is a "Personal Relationship Manager". It lets you tag people (e.g. by skill, passion, etc), and then assign regular reminders to reach out to them (e.g. "connect with this person every 3 months"), and lets you take notes on the conversations you had. I have found this tool enormously valuable, as its allowed me to "scale" my personal network, and trust that important people don't get forgotten. I find myself a very LIFO person (the people I most recently connected with, I'll remember to connect with. The folks from long time ago, I often forget). This tool has been helping me re-invigorate my personal/professional relationships.
Note: I have no affiliation with either of the tool recommendations in this post, aside from finding them very useful!
Below are the questions I included in my intro email. If anyone would like to see the "full" email, I could probably generify it, and share directly.
---
Tell me about yourself! If you feel comfortable sharing, I’d love to hear what you are personally passionate about, and what topics, processes, areas etc you are passionate for at X.
What is your role & your responsibilities at X?
What’s a “day in the life” like for you? This helps build empathy and understanding for your world, and how I could best help.
What are your top 3 priorities in the next two months? What specifically are you hoping to achieve?
What do you feel are the top 3 challenges/blockers (1) facing X, (2) facing your team, (3) you professionally at X?
What is your understanding and expectations of me and my role?
How do you envision us working/partnering with one another?
If you were in my shoes, what would be the top 3 things you would prioritize, learn, or focus on in the next month or two?
For each of the above, what would be an actionable next step to make progress? (it could be as simple as, “reach out to X person”, or “read this blog post”)
What do you think would be some realistic, achievable and impactful “quick wins” or contributions I could make, for me to consider taking on as I get started at the company?
Very Important: Suggest 3 amazing people at X for me to reach out to, who you think connecting with and learning from would help make me successful in my journey at X. Be sure and tell me what about these people is so amazing & awesome!
As this currently reads, this evokes intense feelings of vitriol at the mere hypothetical of a peer attempting to coerce me to engage in a pathologically transactional relationship I would want zero part of. In the most satisfying job roles, I would expect to endure hardship for the sake of others' success, and this would immediately put me on notice that such endurance would likely be wasteful and painful in its lack of reciprocal personal investment. It would also signal that engagement in technical subject matter was merely a means to an end rather than an inherent fascination, which would make me significantly less likely to feel comfortable sharing the war stories that drive the motivation behind the current state of the team.
Am I missing something here? The post itself comes across as in-good-faith, so I'm having a hard time reconciling...
You joined as an engineer, not a manager. Why are you asking people how you can help with their challenges when it’s very unlikely you have the power to do so? I’d find this entire email process very bizarre, demanding and power-seeking (you want me to tell you who the bigshots are so you can meet them and what you should do to get promoted, and you’re pretending it’s for my benefit? Who are you trying to kid?). I’d certainly end up with a very negative view of you. Just so you know.
Maybe I am too European for this, but I'd be very wary if I received such emails. I'd shrug and throw it in the bin. You come across as a try hard that is more concerned with "chit chatting" than performing actual work.
My 2 cents for starting a new job: shut up and work. Contribute, show what you can do. Teams are often overworked. Start closing tickets, making small improvements. Don't step on anyone's toes. Observe and contribute first.
Thank you for posting this! I'm going to be starting a new job sometime soon, and this is giving me all sorts of ideas! Especially thank you for being so comprehensive in your comment. Some questions:
What size is your company, and what level of SWE are you? Did your referrals tend to move up the org chart, or stay at the same level? Is your role very broad? I ask this last one because a question like "How do you envision us working/partnering with one another?" seems like something I would ask an immediate coworker, not necessarily someone two connections away. Are you a tech lead, or someone with reports (or some other position of authority?).
Finally, one of your questions contains what appears to be your company name, I don't know if it was intentional to leave that there, just letting you know.
I work remotely, where most of my team doesn't (well, didn't before Covid). I took the habit of initiating conversations with new employees, remotely or whenever I visit the office. It doesn't take much but it's worth it. It brings more trust and ease up future relations. Surprisingly, I've noticed some people can be isolated from their colleagues even when sharing the same office.
In my time of bouncing between jobs and meeting new teams on a regular basis I found that the biggest hurdle for me was remembering where everyone sat in the org. So I made a little app to keep track of this (Collaborative Groups)
> When I joined the Financial Times as Technical Director for FT.com, I inherited a team of around 50 engineers. One of the first things I did was meet each of them for a one-to-one. I was initially resistant, but it was extremely valuable, I’m glad I did it, and I would definitely do it again in a future role.
I recently joined a startup, and I am glad I did not meet everyone (except learned a lot of faces in video meetings) because of COVID-19. More precisely, the second wave has been officially recognized by the government last week. Remote working is the status quo, and it will remain that way. Not my preference, normally, but it'll remain this way for the time being. Perhaps an interesting article in 2021.
They joined FT in 2018 from what I can tell, so meeting everyone would have been entirely normal. In a remote working model, you could obviously do it over VC.
[+] [-] kybernetikos|5 years ago|reply
After I'd spoken to everyone, I created a report for the executive committee summarizing all topics that had come up multiple times, and highlighting individuals that were widely relied on.
[+] [-] ketzo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jan_g|5 years ago|reply
Warning to all of you in non-managerial position: be very wary of confidentiality proclamations. It happened to me that my manager ran immediately to the CEO, when I said I'm going to start looking for a new job in 3-6 months time. I told him that I specifically don't want this information to leak, but yeah, everybody knew it by the next working day.
Lesson learned: never tell anything sensitive or important in your 1-on-1s with the manager. Except pleasantries, hobbies and other useless stuff.
[+] [-] websap|5 years ago|reply
1. Are we going to talk about something which we can't broadly address? 2. How do I trust someone new on the team to actually keep things confidential, what have they done to earn my trust? 3. I'm going to be more guarded about what I say, because now I'm thinking this person will probably want to misconstrue what I'm saying to their benefit.
Talking about career conversations. I wouldn't tell anyone about my career plans until the day I have to. In my experience telling people early has no tangible benefit.
[+] [-] meristem|5 years ago|reply
One way to manage this is to have the casual conversation, and then in a separate 'official' conversation broach only that issue with the employee.
But yeah--highly recommend building relationships with managers before talking about career plans outside company. Career plans inside your company is a different deal. If you have a useful manager who actually is invested in the growth of the team, it is a great opportunity. (growth = expertise, not growth = number of direct reports)
[+] [-] varispeed|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rootsofallevil|5 years ago|reply
For me, potential job changes is the only thing I will lie about to a current manager.
I appreciate that a manager might be concerned about losing staff but if half the team have gone due to very clear changes in the way things are run (dictated from above), why would I be any different?
[+] [-] jeffrallen|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] josep-panadero|5 years ago|reply
Sadly, right now, I am technical leader for too many teams but once the situation is solved (we are hiring a new architect) my focus is on getting more regularly in contact with all teams and not just the ones working on the topics that require my attention. There are always small things that go unsaid unless done in a one on one.
One year later, I repeated - just for three teams - the ones on ones and asked for personal feedback and the general "Is there anything you think I should know about?" again. It was very insightful, and I was able to get more into the nuance of the people's views as I had more knowledge about the company.
I recommend, if you have the opportunity, to go to training on coaching. I got the training as a manager several years ago, and I found that type of training very useful for all positions and an important part missing in the software engineering curriculum. It is very difficult to help to solve technical problems without knowing the views of the people that would design and implement the details of the system. Spending time to create rapport it always pays off, and - for me - it is something fun to do.
[+] [-] SergeAx|5 years ago|reply
Knowing that engineering teams are overloaded most of the time, I've got that question for first 1:1s: "If you have a week without having to closing tickets, what would you do for the project?" Those are not necessary an items for my to-do list, but clearly showing people's priorities and what they think is really important.
[+] [-] cmehdy|5 years ago|reply
It wasn't about trying to be ten steps ahead of anything or about taking any statement as absolute truth, but to understand different perspectives, to explain in quick and simple terms the reason why I had joined and in what ways I could help them, and to establish those contacts to facilitate future interactions. Every single discussion was worthwhile, because I understood a lot about the company really quickly (which helped me in my work) and every time an issue came up I could easily feel empowered to connect with those people and be put in touch with the right person, or to hear the non-official stuff that is sometimes harder to share across teams and therefore help the team with a little bit more personality than by slinging tickets across boards.
Assuming you're not working in a place with an overwhelming amount of psychopaths (which I assume is a reasonable goal for the majority of people), I would say that caring about other people does pay back quickly and significantly (as shallow as that might sound).
[+] [-] l0b0|5 years ago|reply
For example, are the tech lead and managers listeners or talkers? Do they solve problems, delegate them or ignore them? Is the team as a whole enthusiastic about the work? Are there rock stars, cowboys, social justice warriors, dominant/submissive personalities, blamers, micromanagers or virtue spiralists? A little bit of even several of these is probably inevitable in any team, but it's possible to take any one of these to a toxic level.
[+] [-] ajb|5 years ago|reply
Probably can't actually peg all potential problem team members, but getting a chance to do so is valuable and shows good will on the part of the employer.
I guess some people are upset at the characterisation of "social justice warriors" as a negative. Don't really want to get into the politics part - but that's kind of the point. There is a place for politics at work, when it can alleviate genuine suffering, but advertising which in-group you belong to isn't it. That goes for both sides of the political divide.
[+] [-] jeffrallen|5 years ago|reply
I've had bosses occasionally call me in for these types of open questions. It's really useful. But there's also a bit of mystery to when it happens and why it is not equally distributed across the team. There's a bit of "teacher's pet" anxiety associated with it.
There's another thing that can happen in these confidential conversations which she was not in a position to do at this point... Sometimes the boss can explain the political landscape he/she finds themselves in, such that you can contribute better insights to help them protect your team.
[+] [-] Cyph0n|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrud|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] zachrose|5 years ago|reply
At thirty minutes a pop these meetings come out to 25 hours. That does not strike me as “a lot of hours” given that this is talking to everyone who works in your department. Put another way is like a sanity check on the biggest and most important category of your department’s budget, at roughly 1% of your annual time.
[+] [-] nfm|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NateThePirate|5 years ago|reply
Seems like it would be harder to become friends with coworkers, or easy feel isolated in your work (particularly outside of software development).
[+] [-] wcerfgba|5 years ago|reply
On the calls we talk about random stuff like our hobbies, what's going on in our lives, what we did this week. Occasionally we talk a bit about work but we usually try to keep it as socially focused as possible.
I've found that it contrasts well with the typical situation of being in an office. In office I find there is continuous social interaction, but it can be more shallow (banter, quick chat, etc), whereas a 1:1 format like this allows you to develop a deeper connection with each person and have more nuanced discussions.
[+] [-] dv35z|5 years ago|reply
I created a really comprehensive intro email about myself (work stuff, personal stuff, passions, etc). I wrote this in Google Docs, so it would be easy to paste into Gmail, and preserve the nice formatting. In this email, I included several questions (see below), which I wanted to ask the person. I got these questions from a few sources, including "The first 90 Days" book, along with some other questions I found through Google. At the end of the email, I marked in bold: Suggest 3 other amazing people for me to connect to, and why you recommend them.
I sent the emails out, and got replies within 1-2 days - 75% provided me with 3 names! If some did not provide me with names, I politely followed up with warm, thankful email, but also a reminder to please send me name, which each of them did.
I then sent out "cold" emails to THOSE people, starting with "X person said to reach out you" (helping bring a familiar name immediately at the beginning of the email). I used the exact same email template for that, along with asking for more names.
I used a Google spreadsheet to keep track of all the people I reached out with, along with columns for questions, the people they referred, and who referred them.
At current, I have 15 1:1s scheduled for next week, and tentatively 5-10 scheduled for the week after. I'm using labels in Gmail to flag "@ Waiting" for the people who have not responded, so that I can follow up after a few days.
In the meeting invites I sent to folks, I included the agenda items in the description, so it was top-of-mind for them, as they checked their calendar.
I'm using a note taking tool called Obsidian (https://obsidian.md/) to take notes on all the conversations I'm having with people. This tool lets you write in markdown, and quickly crosslink topics (like a personal wiki). The goal is to create a knowledge base of information, based on all the "here's what you need to know" topics that people share with me.
Finally (and important). I made sure to set expectations with my manager before doing this. I basically told him: (1) I am going to setup conversations with many people this first 2 weeks of work. (2) I will use this output of these conversations to build a learning plan of topics which these people suggest focusing on, (3) I will then synthesize these notes, and will share them with you (manager). (4) You and I will review the learning plan, and prioritize it together. (5) We will use this plan, along with our weekly 1:1s to build out a 30/60/90 day plan.
This was important, because it allowed me to "buy time" before being thrown into a million meetings, assignments, etc. Each person I have spoken to so far has had different suggestions on what the first several things to focus on, learn, etc are. However, they have all been incredibly valuable - and in many cases, they are things I would not have immediately known to even list down.
The great part about this approach (in my opinion), is that all of the people I'm meeting are essentially pre-selected for awesomeness by someone awesome. All of the conversations have been enormously valuable.
The feedback I've gotten from the people has been really great, and validating!
Bonus: I have been using an app called UpHabit (https://uphabit.com/), which is a "Personal Relationship Manager". It lets you tag people (e.g. by skill, passion, etc), and then assign regular reminders to reach out to them (e.g. "connect with this person every 3 months"), and lets you take notes on the conversations you had. I have found this tool enormously valuable, as its allowed me to "scale" my personal network, and trust that important people don't get forgotten. I find myself a very LIFO person (the people I most recently connected with, I'll remember to connect with. The folks from long time ago, I often forget). This tool has been helping me re-invigorate my personal/professional relationships.
Note: I have no affiliation with either of the tool recommendations in this post, aside from finding them very useful!
Below are the questions I included in my intro email. If anyone would like to see the "full" email, I could probably generify it, and share directly.
--- Tell me about yourself! If you feel comfortable sharing, I’d love to hear what you are personally passionate about, and what topics, processes, areas etc you are passionate for at X.
What is your role & your responsibilities at X?
What’s a “day in the life” like for you? This helps build empathy and understanding for your world, and how I could best help.
What are your top 3 priorities in the next two months? What specifically are you hoping to achieve?
What do you feel are the top 3 challenges/blockers (1) facing X, (2) facing your team, (3) you professionally at X?
What is your understanding and expectations of me and my role?
How do you envision us working/partnering with one another?
If you were in my shoes, what would be the top 3 things you would prioritize, learn, or focus on in the next month or two?
For each of the above, what would be an actionable next step to make progress? (it could be as simple as, “reach out to X person”, or “read this blog post”)
What do you think would be some realistic, achievable and impactful “quick wins” or contributions I could make, for me to consider taking on as I get started at the company?
Very Important: Suggest 3 amazing people at X for me to reach out to, who you think connecting with and learning from would help make me successful in my journey at X. Be sure and tell me what about these people is so amazing & awesome!
[+] [-] ShroudedNight|5 years ago|reply
Am I missing something here? The post itself comes across as in-good-faith, so I'm having a hard time reconciling...
[+] [-] silveroriole|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] photonios|5 years ago|reply
My 2 cents for starting a new job: shut up and work. Contribute, show what you can do. Teams are often overworked. Start closing tickets, making small improvements. Don't step on anyone's toes. Observe and contribute first.
[+] [-] zvorygin|5 years ago|reply
What size is your company, and what level of SWE are you? Did your referrals tend to move up the org chart, or stay at the same level? Is your role very broad? I ask this last one because a question like "How do you envision us working/partnering with one another?" seems like something I would ask an immediate coworker, not necessarily someone two connections away. Are you a tech lead, or someone with reports (or some other position of authority?).
Finally, one of your questions contains what appears to be your company name, I don't know if it was intentional to leave that there, just letting you know.
[+] [-] yodsanklai|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] javieranton|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dutch3000|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swilliamsio|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sullyj3|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] draw_down|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Fnoord|5 years ago|reply
I recently joined a startup, and I am glad I did not meet everyone (except learned a lot of faces in video meetings) because of COVID-19. More precisely, the second wave has been officially recognized by the government last week. Remote working is the status quo, and it will remain that way. Not my preference, normally, but it'll remain this way for the time being. Perhaps an interesting article in 2021.
[+] [-] masonhensley|5 years ago|reply
If in a historic remote team or now, I still encourage this practice.
[+] [-] sokoloff|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pvinis|5 years ago|reply