Research and development organizations understand the importance of an onboarding process for new engineers. But what about engineering managers?
I recently ran a survey with over 1,100 engineering managers and found that although 100% of respondents believe there is real value in a dedicated onboarding plan for managers, less than 33% of companies actually have one in place. These are companies of all domains and sizes, from small startups to big tech.
When I first joined my company, there wasn’t a dedicated onboarding program for managers. As this was the case, I went through the same induction plan as all new engineers, which primarily focused on technical aspects, hands-on work, and company values.
Consequently, I finished onboarding without a clear understanding of what was expected of me and unprepared for my day-to-day work. I had a lot of unanswered questions, but, luckily, I also had great colleagues, managers, and a wonderful team, who were able to answer them and support me as I developed in the role.
A year later, I became a director of engineering at the same company, where the onboarding of new managers became my responsibility. In that period, we were expecting several individuals to step into managerial positions, and there was still no dedicated onboarding plan for engineering managers.
Wanting to ensure that we provided a better integration experience for new engineering managers and having learned a lot from my own experience, I set out to build a plan that could support and guide engineering managers in their first days.
The onboarding plan I developed is built upon four foundational pillars:
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Have an end date - Providing a set end date establishes a clear sense of completion. At my company, we didn’t want to stretch the plan longer than four weeks to be efficient and support the organization’s business needs.
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Engineering manager ownership - The plan is overseen by the engineering managers being onboarded to root the concepts of ownership and accountability. Each engineering manager is also assigned a buddy — a peer engineering manager — for support.
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Theoretical sessions and hands-on experiences - The plan consists of two forms of training: theoretical sessions (discussions and presentations) and hands-on experiences (putting theory into practice with live feedback).
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Adapt to fit any manager’s background - The plan should reflect each manager’s needs, whether they’re hired externally or transferred internally.
For more details on the framework, check out my blog post: Building an onboarding plan for engineering managers.
About the Talk
In this talk, I’ll share my four-week onboarding process for engineering leads that emphasizes peopleware, tech leadership, and delivery management.
How do you set up a leader, who is either a promoted employee or a new hire, to succeed? What are the long-term implications of how this happens?
I’ll provide a behind-the-scenes look at this super adaptable process which uses a framework of “sessions” and “experiences”, sharing everything from my mistakes to my insights.
Key Takeaways
You will leave this talk with knowledge on:
- A comprehensive outline of an onboarding process for engineering leaders
- How to center peopleware, core leadership skills, and delivery management throughout onboarding
- Common onboarding mistakes and how to mitigate them
Resources
- Video: YouTube Recording
- Related Blog Post: Building an onboarding plan for engineering managers