ESSENTIALS MANAGEMENT Issuu goes one step further than shadowing, and actually delays team assignments for engineers until they’ve completed a robust onboarding process. First, new hires spend a week with every team. “Atfer those ifve weeks, I usually sit together with the new engineer and maybe two team leads, and we decide on a team for their placement. It’s always a compromise between business needs and the personal preference of the engineer,” says Grosse. “In some ways, this onboarding process is an extension of our hiring process: it only suits engineers who we want to attract — those who are open to a broad range of challenges. But regardless, it encourages deeper engagement in the onboarding process. When you assign the team before onboarding, new hires have less patience. Understandably, they want to contribute to their team and be successful. If they don’t know who their team is, they usually are more curious about the company, asking: ‘Hey, what’s here, what’s there, what’s interesting? Where can I contribute?’” 86