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.
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.
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