David Morey 
- High-quality employee onboarding can improve employee retention by 82%
- There are over 1.8 million software developer jobs in the US
If you’re a fast-growing software development company, you’ll be hiring lots of new developers over the coming years. This is a very exciting prospect for everyone involved — but you need to make sure that you get your developer onboarding process right. Otherwise, there’s a risk that new developers will join your team without being integrated in a truly efficient way. The consequences of this can range from high staff turnover to lower productivity, which aren’t desired outcomes.
So, how can you onboard new developers faster and in a way that gets them prepared as best as possible? You can check out the steps below to find out.
Use a Unified Platform For API Management
When it comes to onboarding new developers, you need a unified platform for API management that contains the right API management tools. For example, with the developer portal, you can onboard developers to the platform extremely quickly. From here, new developers will be able to browse and search your APIs, access important documentation, and more, so that they can gain a clearer picture of active application development projects your company has going on. This is excellent if you’re looking to boost the productivity and knowledge levels of new developers from the very beginning.
Provide Resources
Next, you need to provide new developers with all of the resources they need. This should include:
- A welcome letter
- Company merchandise
- Office supplies
- A new developer handbook
- Schedule information
With these resources, new developers will integrate into your company much faster than they would without them.
Pair New Developers With Senior Developers
To further speed up and improve your onboarding process, pair any new developer you hire with a senior developer for the first month. This will provide new developers with an opportunity to receive helpful advice and any necessary training that they might need. Specifically, you should make sure that your pairings work on a shared command line or code editor for maximum collaboration.
Naturally, some of your new developers might be working from home on a full-time or part-time basis. This can make pairing them with new developers more difficult, but don’t allow this to cause potential roadblocks. Nowadays, teams of developers can easily communicate and collaborate together while working remotely using Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and other platforms.
Set Expectations And Deadlines
The onboarding process is largely about introducing the company culture to new developers. A large portion of this revolves around setting expectations and deadlines so that new developers know that you have high standards and expect good work from them. You can even provide them with a detailed rundown of previous software projects you’ve done and how your team managed to complete them.
Add Them to The Payroll
Lastly, make sure new developers you hire are added to the payroll as quickly as possible. This will then enable you to start recording pay rates and hours worked right away, which is especially important if you’re looking to onboard new developers within a matter of days.
