Should we over-exert during onboarding?

Taro has an excellent course on this topic - "The Complete Onboarding Guide For Software Engineers"

Here Rahul speaks about stuff beyond crunching code.

From my personal experience at Mailchimp it is very important to onboard well and create a good first impression. As once people perceive you in a certain way, it is difficult to change it ( if perception is bad). No matter how hard you work afterwards. People like to talk about other colleagues , and when the tech lead talks to their colleagues about you ( in casual setting) , that impression further spreads.

The projects you get depend on the impression leads and managers have of you. This in turn affects visibility, promotion, pay. I am not sure if this is the case everywhere, I’m talking about my experience with Mailchimp ( Intuit). I’m certain good teams have a culture of feedback and the leads provide you ways to bring you up if you aren’t hitting the mark. In fact that is a very important aspect of being a tech lead - to provide feedback.

The first 6 months are hard at a new job, if you want to do well and thrive. I understand the need to set boundaries initially so that you are not shooting yourself in the foot. It would be a good idea to do this as well initially. For example, no PR reviews over weekends, no slack over weekends, and other things that are important to you to have a good WLB.

Good luck 👍🏽

When onboarding, you definitely want to make sure you look good as you want to dispel any apprehension that you won't be able to make it on the team (this is very real at top companies like FAANG in particular, especially now). So if you need to work a 45-hour week instead of a 40-hour one to get your onboarding tickets in on time, definitely do it.

However, you and Rashmi bring up a good point around over-exerting setting the bar too high and being unsustainable, which I agree with. If you need to work 60+ hour weeks just to survive, you are merely kicking the can down the round. You will eventually burn out, and that extra time should have been pointed towards strengthening your core, making yourself more efficient (i.e. getting more done with less time), and building up fundamental skills. In other words, follow all the advice in Taro! 😂

For a senior engineer, I highly recommend winning with quality and depth instead of quantity. On top of Rahul's onboarding course, here's a good thread to dig into: "How can I quickly gain respect among my team as a senior engineer?"

For being a more effective engineer overall, I recommend this: [Course] Maximize Your Productivity As A Software Engineer

I really do think it's worth it to set yourself up for success as much as possible in the beginning, especially when you have that new hire energy. It's way harder to change other people's perception of you the more time has passed.

For how to select the cases, you still don't want to sacrifice your health or social connection because you'll burn out very quickly. But, if you can find pockets of time (1-2 hours) throughout the evening where you can sneak in some code, it can make a big difference over the course of a month.