I’m joining this startup as an entry-level engineer, but I don’t know the tech stack. How can I ramp up quickly and impress the team?

For someone who doesn’t know the tech stack at my company (and especially if they’re entry-level), my expectation is not that they ship a lot of code immediately. Instead, I think the fastest way to impress the team is by going above and beyond in the “mundane” tasks that you are given when starting out. Another way of phrasing it: “care more about the details than other people”.

A few tactical ways to do this:

• When someone gives you code review feedback, act on it quickly, and then extrapolate their feedback to other parts of the codebase.
• Write detailed test plans which include screenshots/videos, and an explanation of what you did.
• Read the documentation or untouched code that no one has bothered to look at in years, and then share what you’ve learned (make it actionable, insightful, or both).

If a new person on the team did this, they’d quickly win over my trust.