This article is the fourth (and likely final) in a series. Check out the first three articles at Onboarding COVID-19: Setting the Scene, Onboarding COVID-19: This Gonna Be Interesting, or Onboarding COVID-19: Starting to Settle In.
My first week of the new role is over. The team’s adapted really well to working from home, I’m feeling like I can already add some value to the organisation, and as an added bonus my partner is still talking to me after being stuck no more than 1.5m away from me for a whole week.
Although I’m still finding my feet in the new role, I can already tell I will enjoy working with the team and I hope I can add value for them. I still haven’t arranged catch-ups with individual people, but through the prolific use of video conferencing and regular team-wide check-ins I am getting to know people.
My experience working in geographically diverse teams has enabled me to make a number of suggestions for the department I am in, and many of these are being adopted. I’ve started helping another new starter (who started a week before me) with some direction and helping to align expectations. I’m actively working with the CPO to make sure our expectations are aligned, and I’ve also talked to our Test/QA Lead about some future plans to adopt best practices.
The majority of my first week (about 80% of the time) has been spent in video calls and that looks as though it will settle down a bit next week. Overall the week has been a positive experience; I’ve created a list of items we need to be aware of for onboarding another developer in this environment (primarily relating to more structure being required for remote onboarding), proposed a number of minor improvements to help us communicate better and be more productive in a remote work environment. I’m already gaining confidence in my ability to fulfil my role.
I’m not sure if there will be much else to add to this short series of articles; but I may add an additional article at the end of next week if there’s anything worth reporting.
I hope this short series of articles has shed some light on the remote onboarding experience; and please reach out to me on LinkedIn if you have any questions or would like to know more about my experience.