Onboarding at Scale: An Engineering Problem

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Onboarding at Scale Tomer Gabel Velocity 2016 Amsterdam Image: Akheree Monajat (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Wix is… • A web publishing platform • Distributed R&D – Tel-Aviv (Israel) – Be’er-Sheva (Israel) – Dnipropetrovsk (Ukraine) – Kiev (Ukraine) – Vilnius (Lithuania) • Growing rapidly – Jul 2013: 120 engineers – Now: 400+ engineers

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Scaling up is hard Fundamental premise:

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RESEARCH Image: Martine Perret / UNMEER (CC BY-ND 2.0)

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Guilds and Companies Company Guild

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Our Customers Server Guild React Guild NG Guild

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Challenges Onboarding Doctrine Recruiting

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Proposed Solution:

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Product Suite Kickstart Training Kit Crash Course Images: Jeff Robins (CC BY 2.0), Vernon Cunningham (Public Domain), Paul Fisher (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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Training Kit

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Training Kit: Customers As a Guild Lead, I want to: • Start onboarding early • Reduce overhead • Have quality reference material Image: KCNA

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Training Kit: Customers As a Team Lead, I want to: • Simplify training of new hires • Minimize disruption to my team • Have quality reference material Image: John Kennicutt, USMC (Public Domain)

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Training Kit: Customers As a new hire, I want to: • Understand the technology stack • Be productive quickly • Learn on my own (and not be a pest) Image: Cubmundo (BY-SA 2.0)

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Training Kit: Design Goals Guided self-learning Customizable Based on external resources

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Kickoff • Meet the Guild Lead – Validate assumptions – Identify key (technical) partners • Scope definition – Meet key partners – Set scope and expectations – Generate “bucket list” of desirable topics • Review and prioritize

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Development • Guild Days – Ask for some volunteers – Host them for a full day – Volunteers pick subjects – Volunteers search & evaluate material

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Development • Postprocessing – By a professional training developer – Wording, formatting – Consistent structure

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Feedback Collection • Per-subject feedback – Simple web form – Highlights substantial issues (if any) • Guild Day (one-off) – Technical review by experts • Interviews (one-off) – Team leads – New hires

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Lessons Learned Assumptions • Content – Only developers can evaluate content – Minor post-processing – Focus on learning • Structure – Topics are atomic units – Customizable set/order Reality – Dedicated professional can take over – Most of the actual work – Need actionable content (exercises, koans etc.) – Topics are interrelated – Modules are necessary

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Lessons Learned Assumptions • Marketing – R&D will self-market – No need for special effort • Maintenance – Mostly ad-hoc – Developer pull requests • Future efforts – Proper UX Reality – Little known, little used – Initial push insufficient – Constant, significant work – Little participation – Not that useful, for now

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So what’s next? 1. Dedicated content/training developer 2. Revise structure for modularity 3. Significant in-house marketing effort Image: Booyabazooka (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Kickstart

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Kickstart: Overview Takes juniors as input, outputs web developers 9 weeks, fully salaried End result: professional web developers

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Kickstart: Tiers 1. Individual self-learning 2. Teamwork and agile methods 3. Full product lifecycle

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Kickstart: Challenges Expensive (salaries, resources) Tightly coupled recruiting effort Mentorship and preparation

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Recruitment • Unique requirements – Experience/skill level – Recruiting in bulk – Cost mitigation • A dedicated pipeline – “Recruiting days” – Carefully orchestrated

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Lessons Learned Why do this? • The social element – Company culture – Built-in “buddy system” • Sustainable recruiting – Easy to plan for – Marketing-bound, really – Great people! Why not? • Expensive – Facilities, staff, amenities… – And fully salaried to boot • Hard to do consistently – Staff turnover – Buy-in is a constant effort – Dedicated staff is critical

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Crash Course

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Crash Course: Overview Mid- to senior-level onboarding course Recurring, every ~2 months 3 weeks End result: a working MVP

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Crash Course: Rationale End-to-end production experience Groups mimic team structure Focus on methodology, philosophy

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Crash Course: Challenges Cost-prohibitive below 10 participants Requires mix of server/front-end Mentorship and preparation

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Planning • Week 1: Ramp-up – Heavy on doctrine (TDD, CD) – Tech stack (Scala, TypeScript) • Weeks 2-3: Project time – Guided bootstrapping – Constant mentorship

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Lessons Learned Why do this? • Break down the wall – The server-client divide – Reinforce TDD, CD etc. – Makes our stack accessible • Reduces new employee friction • Huge marketing boon

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Lessons Learned Why not? • Expensive – Facilities, staff, amenities… – And fully salaried to boot • Tight scheduling – Lots of ad-hoc adjustments – Everything needs a backup • Minimal recruiting rate Image: Jenny Poole (CC BY 2.0)

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POST-MORTEM Image: Daniel X. O’Neil (CC BY 2.0)

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Lessons Learned • These are long- running projects • For best results: – Assign dedicated staff – Long-term • This means you can’t rely on engineers – Trust me, I am one… Program Manager Project Manager Training Developer

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Lessons Learned • Scaling up is hard • Doing it ad-hoc works! • Until it doesn’t – It’s not about size – It’s about growth • Consider ROI carefully! Image: Damian Gadal (CC BY 2.0)

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Lessons Learned • Mentors are your biggest asset – You need their buy-in – You need them to come back • Give them what they need – “Soft skills” workshops, simulations – Expectation setting and guidance – Hold status/venting sessions. Pay attention!

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Lessons Learned • These are big projects • Success is about logistics – Huge todo list – Scheduling hell – Constant interruptions – Follow-ups • That’s a lot to keep track of • Hire a Project Manager. “Behind every great leader there was an even greater logistician.” - M. Cox Image: Rom Logistics (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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QUESTIONS? Thank you for listening tomer@tomergabel.com @tomerg http://engineering.wix.com To contact Wix academy (ask us anything!): academy@wix.com This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.