Top 10 Tips To Ramp Up As Software Engineer

Joining a new company or a new team as a software engineer is hard. Your manager sits you down and welcomes you to the team, assigns you a couple tasks and sends you off to your merry ways.

You’re expected to learn: new programming languages, tools, testing frameworks etc. The list goes on. On top of that, you’re expected to ship new features in the first few weeks of joining.

It’s tough, but it doesn’t have to be.

I know how frustrating and stressful period this can be, and I wanted to share some tips and tricks I picked up from my experience working at both startups and large tech.

(This article also resonates strongly with me as I started writing this article ~10 months before joining Facebook/Meta, and I completely IGNORED some of the tips I outlined here 😑 This goes to show that ramping up is a difficult process, but keep your head up and try to iteratively get better each time!)

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1: Ask questions and stay curious

People are often afraid of asking questions because they fear being seen as dumb. Fear not, my friend. You’re hired BECAUSE they saw something in you. You’re there to provide a fresh set of eyes, a new perspective. There’s nothing silly about genuinely trying to understand how things work.

What’s worse than asking questions, is not asking questions.

If you’re sitting there mum shut because you’re too afraid to appear dumb, you’re going to struggle when time comes to execute.

Regrets during my early career

Earlier in my career, I had always been afraid of asking questions. It could be because I didn’t want to appear dumb. It could also be my cultural upbringing in an Asian household where subservience is perceived as ideal. Nevertheless, my silence cost me dearly.

I was assigned as project lead for a cross-functional project. I had laid out milestones and details about execution. But I didn’t fully understand the requirements from our data analysts. In our meetings, I didn’t ask too many questions because I didn’t want to be seen as “dumb”.

Dead wrong.

What ended happening was that the I completely misunderstood the requirements, and my final deliverable missed the mark by a mile. That was a costly mistake that not only scarred my ego, but also cost me a promotion. That was a lesson I would never forget.

2. Make sure you have a concrete plan for ramping up

This should come from your manager or you can make one yourself. Set up 15-day, 30-day, 45-day goals and share with your manager. This will ensure you’re tackling the right projects and focusing on the highest impact work.

3. Get feedback early and often

Working in a team environment can be a fun experience, but the relationship dynamics can be difficult to grok.

You might be excited to bring forth changes from your previous employment, but your team members might enjoy the current status quo.

If you’re stepping on toes without knowing it, the worst way to find out is during performance review.

Set up weekly 1:1s with your manager, tech lead. Use this time to ask for their thoughts and opinions. Get their feedback on things you’re doing well and, more importantly, what you’re not doing well.

Make it a point to have regular (weekly/monthly) feedback sessions with people you work with.

Be it your manager, peers, reports, make sure you find time to check in with them. Be very explicit when you’re asking for feedback.

I like to ask directed questions like, where do you think I can improve in my presentation yesterday, instead of hand-wavy questions like, what do you think I should work on next?

Feedback is a gift, treat it with respect and be proactive in soliciting feedback.

4. Form a mental map of who knows what

The fastest way to ramp up is to know who you should go to for specific problems.

On my first day, I always make a point of asking my manager/peers a very specific question: who do you think I should speak with?

I ask them for a list of key people. I then try to link together names that are called out most often - these are usually key stakeholders within the team/organization.

This question helps me do several things:

1. prioritize the list of key stakeholders. This little tip has saved me immense amounts of time.
2. draws a graph of who’s-who in the organization.

Once you meet 10-15 of these folks, you’ll quickly have a sense of who’s doing what.

5. Document everything

The fastest way to build rapport with your teammates in my experience is to ship wins quickly.

It doesn’t have to be code-related - anything that improves their lives or removes an obstacle would be great candidates to start.

From my experience, documentation is always a pain point for any team and many teams know this but have not allocated time to fix it.

Documentation is always thought of as second-class citizen reserved for interns, even though everyone recognizes that documentation is important for ramping up new hires and passing on tribal knowledge.

As a new hire, fixing documentation is one of the easiest, low-hanging fruit to win your team over. You’re looking at things from a fresh pair of eyes, and if something doesn’t work or is outdated, you’re in the best position to make that change.

Not only will these serve as your reference material later, you’re setting a strong positive example for the rest of the team.

Win-Win! 🎉

6. Lean on your support network

Whenever starting a new role/team, I always feel intimidated. The fear of being disliked, the fear of underperforming.

One tip I’ve picked up is to lean on your support network. That could be your manager, new teammates, recruiter, or the senior engineer on the team.

They’re there to help you be successful, I don’t think anyone’s out to “get you”. If you’re unsure or need guidance, reach out to them and share your concerns.

Some might fear that asking questions is a form of weakness. I find that showing vulnerability just means you’re human. No one’s perfect - everyone starts somewhere.

The best folks I’ve worked with are unafraid to ask for help, and I’ve never once thought of them as “weak”.

7. It’s a marathon, not a sprint

Don’t burn yourself out trying to learn too many things to ramp up quickly. Keep working at a sustainable pace and remind yourself that working smart is always better than working hard.

8. Try to meet everyone and say hi

Ramp-up time is best used to build connections, bar none. Spend time to introduce yourselves to your peers, product managers, sister teams. You never know who you might need to rely on in the future, so start earning your connection currencies early.

9. Don’t worry too much about coding

Most companies will have ramp up time for you to learn. Don’t sweat the coding just yet because there are many more things you need to know - build your network, learn the tools, and make sure you have a ramp-up plan. Coding should be the least of your concerns especially when you’re just ramping up.

10. Listen before you speak

Spend time to learn about the context, decisions made in the past - things you might not be able to pick up from just code alone. Often times, a new hire is eager to prove him/herself. That’s understandable, but can be detrimental to your long-term success.

Instead, spend time to listen to others first. Learn about why they’re doing things a certain way. Learn their ways before you prescribe yours. This will go a long way towards helping you build trust and credibility with your teammates.