Add engineering onboarding checklist for new hires

Engineering Onboarding Checklist

Week 1: Environment & Access

• Get laptop configured with standard dev tools (see IT setup guide)
• Gain access to GitHub, Slack, Jira, and internal dashboards
• Complete security training and sign acceptable use policy
• Meet your onboarding buddy and schedule daily check-ins for first two weeks
• Read the team's README and architecture overview docs

Week 2-4: First Contributions

• Complete a "good first issue" from the team backlog
• Shadow a senior engineer during an on-call shift
• Attend your first sprint planning and retrospective
• Set up local development environment and run the full test suite
• Submit your first PR and go through the review process

Day 30-60: Building Context

• Own a small feature or bug fix end-to-end
• Present a brief technical overview of your feature at team standup
• Complete at least one code review for a teammate
• Meet with your manager to set 90-day goals
• Identify one area of the codebase you want to go deeper on

Day 60-90: Independence

• Lead a feature from design through deployment
• Participate in an incident response or post-mortem
• Write or update documentation for something you learned the hard way
• Complete 90-day check-in with manager — review goals and set new ones

Tips for Managers

• Don't overload the first week with meetings
• Assign an onboarding buddy who is not the direct manager
• Check in at day 7, 30, 60, and 90 — adjust pace based on feedback