Tools To Onboard A Developer

Our recommendations to make onboarding a developer simple.

Entrepreneurs and startups are constantly looking for talented developers to grow their team (that’s why we built VentureStorm :)). But finding the right developer is just the start.

You’ve been grinding on your startup full-speed ahead for a while now. You know the ins and outs of your product, and you need to get this newcomer caught up to speed with everything. Luckily there are plenty of tools available to ease the transition.

Slack

I’m just going to go ahead and assume you’re already somewhat familiar with Slack. If not, I’m curious to how you have internet connection beneath that rock you’re living under. Slack is a cloud-based messaging / collaboration tool that makes communication seamless, organized, and kind of fun to be honest.

You can create new channels for different purposes, belong to multiple teams, share documents, sync third-party applications, and a lot more. It’s a lot more ‘work-friendly’ than text messaging, and a lot quicker than email. I’d onboard your developer onto your Slack team to make him feel a part of the team… then use this as your primary tool for communication.

GitHub

Odds are your new developer is already very familiar and comfortable using Git. GitHub is just a web-based Git with a additional features. To make this as least technical as possible — it’s where you’ll store and update the source code.

You can adjust the access control to add your new developer to your probably already existing GitHub repository. That way they have access to build and update your source code, and you can track the changes along the way.

Trello

Trello is a web-based project management application that lets you organize and prioritize your projects seamlessly. It’s a simple way to specify milestones, deadlines, details, and more.

Utilizing Trello is a great way to show your new developer that you’re organized and on top of everything. It will also clearly lay out what work is expected to get done and when.

Google Drive

As your team continues to grow there’s going to be more and more to keep track of. Our team utilizes Google Drive so our notes and key information are public for the rest of the team to access and contribute to.

There’s plenty of additional tools you could utilize, but based on our experiences these are the essentials. If you ever need additional assistance, feel free to contact team@venturestorm.com.

Originally published at blog.venturestorm.com on January 26, 2017.