Developer Onboarding: First 30 Days Playbook for Startups
Onboard engineers in 30 days with codebase walkthroughs, pairing sessions, starter tasks, and documentation so new hires ship production code week 1.
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Max Beech
Head of Content
TL;DR
- Day 1: One-command setup script (clone repo → install deps → run locally in <30 min).
- Week 1: Ship first PR (small bug fix or docs improvement).
- Month 1: Own small feature end-to-end (design → code → tests → deploy).
Developer Onboarding: First 30 Days Playbook for Startups
Great engineers quit within 90 days if onboarding is chaotic -missing docs, broken setup scripts, no clear first tasks. This developer onboarding playbook gets new hires productive in 30 days with structure that scales.
Key takeaways
- Automate setup: one script to clone, install, seed data, run locally.
- Ship code Day 1–7: confidence from seeing PR merged early.
- Pair extensively Weeks 2–3: faster than solo learning.
For related content: /blog/startup-hiring-first-10-employees.