​How to adopt an engineer

Or: Making sure you get the most from your new team member

The following is mostly for those who hire, but it also provides some great insights for those wanting to assess a potential company.
Do you expect new employees to fit in or do you “adopt” them into your company? And by adopt, I mean you go out of your way to help them become part of the company in all aspects.
Until now you might not have thought much about this expectation, and just followed some process in place.
Hopefully though, you have realised that, to get the most out of a new engineering team member, you should do your utmost to help new employees understand the new culture so that they can quickly navigate it, feel welcome, and be productive.
But if you have not, then let’s talk more about it now.
First off, while it might seem obvious now why you should put the effort into adopting any new engineer into your team, within the global engineering context it is even more important.
This is because, while your new employee will have excellent core skills, they still need to understand the nuances of the new company they find themselves in. Otherwise, they are more likely to work in a non-aligned manner, spend excess time understanding simple things instead of working, and not be able to share ideas on how to make things better (because they don’t know enough to spot the flaws). That means you are wasting a valuable resource.
Adoption in this sense is more than things like knowing where the coffee machine is, the company culture regarding start and finish times or working from home, or meeting everyone on the floor. Although these things are important.
It involves things like:

• How is an idea to improve things put forward?
• How are decisions made within the company culture?
• How do we track engineering decisions for future reference?
• How does one approach those in other departments when their input is needed?
• How are people assigned to tasks?
• Where do engineering tasks usually come from?
• How are tasks tracked and established as completed?
• What are the fundamentals of the major technology (or technologies) at this company?
• If something is not going well, then how is it communicated to someone?
• How does the company promote people (if at all)?
• What are the priorities of engineering work: speed of execution; conformance with standards; engagement with others; rigorous documentation; validation before implementation; etc.?
• Is there a desire for cultural change or are things well established and aligned with corporate needs as they are now?

This list could go on.
The theme above that you are potentially picking up is that these are related to the more subtle aspects of how engineering is done – subtle even though the implications are significant.
What you might also be thinking now is that you are not quite sure if you could explain these things to someone. They are potentially things that have become so obvious to you that you can’t see them as unique to your company, or industry, or country.
But in the global engineering context, these things cannot be assumed. And if a new person gets them wrong, then their ability to perform can be severely limited.
If you have a role in welcoming new people to a company, then think now about how comprehensive your induction system is. Does it cover the items mentioned above? Do you even have one?
In my case, I have come up with a checklist of all the things I think are important for an engineer to be a productive member of my team – even things that some might think should be obvious. I then assign induction buddies (people from the team) to go over that list with them to ensure they understand each and how that relates to their work. The induction buddy also becomes a person the adoptee can go back to if anything remains unclear.
If you are applying for a role in a new company, then a good question is: how does your induction process work?  I often add something about understanding the respective technology and the company’s engineering processes – but you should add what you think suits given the nature of the role. The answer can tell you a lot about how well a company will adopt you. Usually, you can sense the surprise because they have never thought about this, or they have a well-defined system in place that they can describe in detail.