new-starters

Information for people new to EngineerBetter.

If this is you, then welcome! We'll keep this succinct so information is easier to find - hopefully the nice, friendly welcome has been effected via other media.

Onboarding process

You should have been assigned an 'onboarding guide', who will be your point-of-contact if you need help.

Generally speaking, the flow of events is something like:

1. You get a Macbook
2. You probably won't get a pile of swag, because it's all in storage (pandemic, and all that)
3. If you're remote, you should install Zoom as a priority, so that we can help via video call
4. You get an email to your personal address, inviting you to your EngineerBetter Google Workspace account. There'll be a password reset.
5. Log into your EngineerBetter GMail account
6. See an invite to a Pivotal Tracker onboarding project with your name on
7. Sign up to Pivotal Tracker, look at the backlog, and get your guide to explain it
8. Work through the backlog

If you're curious what kind of stories are in the onboarding backlog, you can take a look in the prolific directory of this repository.

Why are the tasks in Pivotal Tracker?

Pivotal Tracker embodies a methodology that we're keen to espouse. Using Tracker enables folks to get some initial experience with it, and also allows us to express tasks in terms of their value - something that's critical to delivering useful outcomes.

Approach to knowledge transfer

We deliberately avoid documentation unless we're sure it's going to add value over a long period of time. Documentation gets out-of-date very quickly, and as soon as it's out-of-date, it does more harm than good.

We prefer a just in time approach, in line with Kanban and the Toyota Production System, and typified by the phrase You Ain't Gonna Need It (YAGNI).

If something is important, it will come up in conversation or whilst pairing. If something is not important, no-one will talk about it. If you do not know a thing because it did not come up in conversation, no-one will think any the worse of you.

This approach isn't perfect, but we'd rather incur the costs of knowledge transfer only when proven necessary, rather than up-front and regardless of whether it's required.

Stuff you'll use

Access to these and more are granted during the onboarding process. If you can't access any of the below, please contact the business operations folks.

• 1Password for secrets management
• EBCI is our central Concourse deployment for CI/CD
• GitHub - take a look around at the repos
• Slack - please don't sign in on your mobile
• Float for allocations
• FreeAgent for payroll and pay slips.
• Pleo for expenses.
• Business Central for timesheets (Contact Ivana if you're having access issues)
• Tracker for story management
• Miro for collaborative illustrating
• Google Drive for HR/Team related information
• Notion for company documentation.
• HiBob for all HR related documents, time off and sickness.

Stuff to install

For information on tools/applications and installation see the workstation setup guide.