[snuxoll]

Explaining the business is part of onboarding, both for employment as well as introducing somebody into an existing project IMO. It took me years to fully grasp everything with the team that I started with, and that’s not a knock on anything, but the reality of processes that grew organically for the 10+ years before I started there.

I love sitting down with newer employees, especially junior engineers, and going over stuff like that, along with explaining why specific design choices were made, and concepts they may be unfamiliar with. One of the ones that paired with me on many of my projects from my original team is now the maintainer of those very same projects now, and hot damn does it bring a smile to my face that somebody can send me a message about something and I can just @mention him and pass the buck without worrying. We’d mostly been a .Net+MSSQL shop and these projects were a mix of Python, Kotlin, and PostgreSQL, but he ran with it after I helped get him setup and walked him through the code and gave him some time to pick up the tools.

That success is what solidified my views that critical thinking skills, along with a commitment to lifelong learning, are the best indicators of success for new hires with my org. I can’t teach people these qualities, but those that have them will seek the answers and know how to apply them once they’ve picked them up.