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With the increase of code academies training new engineers there is an increase in junior engineers on the market. A lot of companies are hesitant to hire too many young engineers because they lack sufficient resources to train them. This is a talk about how to make junior engineers into independent and productive members of your engineering team faster and cheaper by outlining a plan for how to onboard engineers effectively based on data and anecdotes gathered from companies in San Francisco. I am a web applications developer from the bay area who builds full-stack web applications. I got my MSCS at Stanford but did my undergrad degree in Communication. I am active in the community with organizations like Hackbright Academy, PyLadies, and Girl Geek Dinners. Help us caption & translate this video! http://amara.org/v/FG1T/
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This video features Kate Heddleston discussing the importance of effective technical onboarding, training, and mentoring of junior engineers, particularly in the context of a growing number of code academies producing new talent. At the RailsConf 2014 event, Heddleston outlines a structured approach that organizations can adopt to enhance the integration of junior engineers into their teams while fostering independence, productivity, and confidence. Key points discussed in the video include: - **Definition of Onboarding**: Onboarding is described as the process of transforming new hires into productive, independent, and confident team members. - **Characteristics for Success**: The talk emphasizes three main traits—productivity, independence (or autonomy), and confidence—as the foundation for effective onboarding. - **Consequences of Poor Onboarding**: Companies without structured onboarding may face high employee attrition rates and declining productivity, which can ultimately affect their bottom line. - **Team Debt Concept**: Just as technical teams accumulate code debt when not maintained, organizations also accumulate team debt when they fail to invest in onboarding and training. - **Diversity in Onboarding**: The importance of structured onboarding is highlighted as critical for fostering diversity within teams, ensuring that individuals from varied backgrounds feel included and valued. - **Onboarding Plan Overview**: Heddleston presents a detailed four-week onboarding plan for junior engineers: - Week 1: Focus on getting the new engineer set up technically and integrated socially with their team. - Week 2: Provide context about the company's history, introduce them to company operations, and promote shadowing of senior engineers. - Week 3: Emphasize communication goals, feedback mechanisms, and allow junior engineers to churn in more independence. - Week 4: Continue scaling back oversight while encouraging independent problem-solving and facilitating shadowing with chosen peers. - **Assessment of Progress**: The video concludes with a discussion on assessing the progress of new engineers and the variability in their learning trajectories, stressing that everyone in the company can play a role in onboarding. ### Conclusion and Takeaways: - Onboarding is crucial for making new hires feel confident, productive, and independent. - Effective onboarding processes can mitigate attrition and enhance the productivity of teams. - Involvement in onboarding can be shared across all team members, not just senior engineers. The session aims to inspire companies to develop their onboarding processes to harness the potential of junior engineers more effectively.
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