---
title: Onboarding checklist — new engineer
project: engineering-team-template
tags:
  - onboarding
  - checklist
  - engineering
date: 2026-04-07
---

# Onboarding checklist — new engineer

**Buddy:** assign on day 1 | **Manager:** schedule 30-60-90 check-ins

## Before day 1 (manager)

- [ ] Laptop and **Yubikey** shipped or desk ready
- [ ] SSO, email, chat, code host, **PagerDuty** (if applicable) groups provisioned
- [ ] First ticket picked: small, merged same week

## Day 1

- [ ] Complete security and **code of conduct** training
- [ ] Clone main service repo; run **docker compose** (or documented dev env) successfully
- [ ] Join team ceremonies; add timezone and working hours to profile

## Week 1

- [ ] Ship a **docs fix** or test improvement PR to learn the release path
- [ ] Read latest **ADR** for your primary codebase
- [ ] Shadow **on-call** primary for two hours (non-production incidents only if possible)
- [ ] Schedule 1:1s with **PM** and **design** partner for your squad

## Week 2–4

- [ ] Ship a **small feature** E2E with buddy review; fix **runbook** gaps you hit; give a **5-minute** lightning talk.

## Ongoing

Light **worklog** (shipped / blocked / needs); **small PRs**; surface requirement conflicts early. Sign HR acknowledgements in the official tool—this file is your working copy.