[envolt]

I joined a new company recently (during pandemic; July). The onboarding was not so smooth. I was constantly following up here and there to get things done (e.g access to tools with IT), more importantly to get to the part with whom do I need to follow up and how to follow up; figuring this out was another follow up.

I created an onboarding guide last week (for my team) which was a very small thing for me (created a document on confluence in an hour). But the amount of response I got was overwhelming (IMO bit too much compared to how i expected to be yet-another-document).

[peterangular]

I've been the "over the moon" guy when someone comes aboard who wants to improve stuff. Sometimes when you're in the trenches competent help arriving can be a godsend. Not saying this is your situation, but people may just be excited.

[nullsense]

>Sometimes when you're in the trenches competent help arriving can be a godsend.

So much this.

[rmk]

Sadly this sort of thing rarely matters when performance review time comes. I have never received any significant benefit career wise or money wise from doing this, despite this kind of stuff making a huge difference for the new joinee.

[noisy_boy]

Sometimes its just about the mindshare. The HR person chatting with the VP: "You know that new girl, what's her name, yeah Julie, she setup a nice onboarding guide, yeah I liked it, very useful..."; casual stuff like that adds the layers of impressions that construct how everyone sees you. And I have observed those impressions to be more lasting and impactful than your last code review.

[rmk]

Meh... Ultimately it has to result in something meaningful; without that, it's just thankless work. Many places (particularly growing companies) have managers who simply do not know how to evaluate technical work (which should be the biggest determinant of monetary or career development rewards). SV has very good technical people (i.e., the foot soldiers are very motivated and above-average people), but the managers are very mediocre at best, way below average or actively malicious at worst (compared to many other industries). It's a curious dichotomy, and I often wonder why it's the case. One reason, that I have seen many times, is that during times of hypergrowth, whoever is just there gets slotted into managerial positions with scarcely any thought given to their managerial ability or skills. This happens less in larger companies, but there, there is a lot of infighting and politics that thwarts good management, not actual incompetence.

[noisy_boy]

I generally agree with you and that kind of solidifies my point. Those mediocre managers won't be as impressed by the milliseconds you shaved off in your clever commit compared to the shiny CRUD front-end or nice checklist or anything else that they can actually understand and relate to. And they are the ones in charge of the comp.

[mod]

That's okay, I think. Not like it's a harder job than you'd otherwise be spending your time on.

[drcoopster]

Sounds like maybe you need to review your choice of employer.

[rmk]

Definitely. One thing I have realised over many years in this industry is that it rarely pays to stay longer than two years at a given place. That's usually enough time to figure out whether you'll be (a) making more money or (b) climbing the career ladder at the company. The answer is usually no, and for this reason, continually interviewing and jumping on the latest shiny toy is the best strategy long-term.