[colbyh]

I've paired a lot and see a lot of value in it but I disagree with most of this, honestly. Agreed on onboarding, but only if that's what works best for the incoming engineer. Two junior engineers pairing rarely increases productivity in my experience and putting some arbitrary number on it like "4 hrs/week" seems dogmatic.

Horses for courses - pairing works really well for some teams and is painful for others. The presence (or lack) of pairing in a company wouldn't be a signal to me, rather I'd take it as a good sign if the team is fine with pairing whenever it makes sense but doesn't have any specific rules about it.