[throwaway5959]

I’m a principal software engineer. If it takes me more than a month to get up to speed with an organization (I usually work with small-mid sized companies), I consider that a failure. Six months to first contribution is insane.

[Volundr]

First contribution is not the same as up-to-speed. I'll also note that a manager often needs a broader view of the company than an engineer, though at principal level I'd expect the gap to be less (but it isn't always).

[ardit33]

First Contribution and Up to full speed ramp up are completely different things.

Expectations at FAANGS is that it might take a month or two for the contribution to start (one week, if you count bootcamp tasks at Meta), but it takes about 6+ months to full ramp up at the Senior+ level.

At small startups, it is very different.

[throwaway5959]

Yup, everyone should work in places they feel comfortable. I don’t want to work in an environment where it takes six months to ramp up.

[freeplay]

Regardless of how good you are, you're ramp up time is very dependent on the place.

If you're walking into a place with very little in the way of documentation and process, it could take a while to learn enough to be effective (ex: 50 different microservices and 5 different stacks, nuanced environments, etc.)

On the other hand, if everything is very standardized and well documented, you can jump right in.