Onboarding With A Probation Period

Because labor laws outside the US can make it difficult to fire someone, many companies will add more barriers before you are a full-time employee at the company with benefits. They will make employees work during a probation period before deciding to offer full-time employment. Contract-to-hire is another common way that this manifests ("try before you buy").

Here are some tips if you're working on this model:

• Chat with your manager early (ideally even before you join) so you can hit the ground running and make a good first impression.
• Information access may be limited, so call out when this happens. You don't want something outside your control to reflect poorly on you.
• Understand the criteria you’re being judged on, e.g. code commits, code reviews, design docs, etc. Track these metrics diligently, and you can even report on them regularly.

Relevant discussion: I’m starting at Apple with a 3 month probation as a new grad. How should I think about the probation period?