As a technical lead, if you have just delegated your new starter process, I urge you to reconsider.
You have just spent a considerable amount of time, energy and money hiring a new developer, but you are now allowing any toxicity in the other developers to impact on your new hire on day one. Unfortunately, you have only one chance, perhaps only one day to imprint the values you want on their mindset.
Step back a minute. When was the last time you moved companies? Maybe two years ago, maybe five, maybe seven? Longer? Wow! You have forgotten what it’s like to start over somewhere. Even worse, you may enjoy the fact that you know more than this new hot shot, only because you have been somewhere longer than they have. And that’s you, as a technical lead. What about the underlying lethargy in the team member you just delegated to?
So first of all, clear your diary or let the new hire shadow you. Keep them by your side for the first week at least. Have clear goals and expectations, for example:
- Did you actually get them a desktop/laptop with login on day one?
- Do they have logins to all the necessary systems (cloud, servers, source code) on day one?
- Do you expect they can build the code and commit a bug fix in week one?
These may sound simple but there are untold stories (we’ve all been there!) of waiting weeks to actually get a login to a desktop machine. For all the talk during the interview process about how high-profile this company is, and what a great opportunity it is, and all those nasty technical interview questions, the reality they see is ‘I can’t login for two weeks, what is this place’.
One thing is guaranteed: spending a week with a new hire trying to get all these basic things done will make you realise how bad your project setup is. Maybe you’re not so hands-on these days! What a great opportunity to dig around and ask a few questions.