Three Things to Make You Stand Out as a New Software Engineer
Congratulations on landing your new job! Now, let’s set you up for success on your new team.
While the recommendations here are aimed at people entering new software engineering roles, the tips for success can also be applied to internal team transfers and even existing roles.
1. Schedule 1:1 Meetings With Your Teammates
Whether you are in the office or working from home, it is incredibly beneficial to meet your teammates and get a read on their experience so far. When I changed teams last year, I scheduled 30 minute meetings almost every day with each member of the team during my first two weeks.
I found that my teammates were pretty excited to meet me and that thirty minutes was often not enough time. I would recommend blocking off 45 minutes or an hour. Even if you end earlier, you can always give back their time.
Here are some ideas of questions to ask:
- What are you currently working on?
- What do you enjoy most about being on this team?
- What is your biggest frustration with the team? What are your biggest pain points? Keep these answers in mind for the future as these are things you could help solve down the line.
- What programming languages/frameworks do you use?
- What are your typical work hours? This is particularly helpful if you are all working from home, and it’s harder to tell exactly when people “leave” the office.
- Who do you typically ask for help?
- Who are the subject matter experts on the team? Related to the previous question, the answer to this question typically reveals the most valuable members of the team.
- Are there any things you wished you did differently when you first started on the team? I like this question because not only will your teammate give you advice for starting out, but you’ll also hear from their experiences when they started out.
2. Plan Ahead for Your Meetings With Your Manager
Your manager should be scheduling regular one-on-one (1:1) meetings with you especially at the beginning. At my company, I have regular 1:1’s with my manager on a weekly basis. Even if your manager does not initially schedule these meetings, you can and should take the initiative to ask for this meeting. This is your chance to get to your manager and better understand how to be successful on the team.
You should always go into the meeting prepared with a list of questions or topics you’d like to discuss. In my first full-time position, I made the mistake of often being unprepared for these meetings. By my second or third meeting, my manager told me that I needed to come prepared with items to talk about. From that point on, I always keep a small text document/physical notepad to prepare for these meetings.
Throughout the week leading up to the meeting, write down anything you have questions about. On the day of the meeting, look through the list and determine which questions you’d like to ask your manager directly. Here are some questions you can ask in your initial 1:1 meetings:
- I’m currently reading through our documentation and setting up my workspace (plus anything else you’re doing), are there any other areas I should focus on?
- What are the current projects that the team is working on?
- I am interested in [insert topic]. Are there any open projects relating to that topic that I could work on?
- For basic questions, who should I reach out to on the team for help? Some teams will automatically assign you a member of the team to be your onboarding buddy. If they don’t, this would be good to know.
- Could I work on a small task to start familiarizing myself with our services?
- In what situations should I contact you directly versus asking teammates? The purpose of this question is to understand your manager’s communication preferences and domain expertise. Some managers have open door policies and welcome discussions with their direct reports. Whatever the case, it’s good to know this earlier rather than later.
As you grow more accustomed to your work, you can also use these meetings to ask higher level questions about the projects you’re working on. As you grow in your career, it will be increasingly important to understand how the systems you build interact with others.
You should also be proactive about your strengths and what you want to accomplish. Telling your manager what you want to do can make their job easier. If a new project comes up that fits your interests and that’s been communicated, there’s a higher likelihood that your manager will ask you if you’d like to work on it.
Ask Lots of Questions
Most of your team will not expect that you understand everything from the start so take advantage of this time to ask any “dumb” questions you may have. Every time you ask a question, take notes on the answers you receive so that you keep track of everything.
Teams may get to a point where there is tribal knowledge that hasn’t been documented since everyone except you knows it. In those cases, you should take the initiative to add on to shared documentation pages or even start a new document detailing any previously missed information. Let your teammates know that you’ve added this information and share it with others who join after you.
If you’re not the only new person on the team, you can ask your team and see if it would make sense to have a separate chat room or document for new hires to ask questions. That way, you create a safe space for these questions and don’t need to feel guilty about flooding the primary chat groups.
Dive into the Code Base
Your team should have documentation or README’s that discuss how to set up the team’s code. After you have everything set up, start looking through the code to see what kinds of changes are being made. An easy way to do this is to look at the commit history of the package.
Especially when I look at new code, I like to look through the commit history and the related pull request. I’ll do that for several commits. This gives me a general sense on how quickly code changes are merged as well as the code reviewing standard.
It is also a great idea to take a look at outstanding pull requests. If you have any comments or questions, you can put them there or reach out to the engineer directly.
Keep Track of Your Progress
Keep your notes in a place that’s easy to find. If you enjoy writing a journal, you can also keep a work journal that you can look back on. This can also be something that is shared with the team for future hires to read up on and see what your experience was like.
With that, you should be ready to get to work! Even as you leave the new hire phase, continue documenting the things you learn and accomplish as those will can be used in your favor for future evaluations.
If you have any questions about anything mentioned or have other suggestions, feel free to let me know in the comments below. Happy coding!
