Of the myriad challenges in scaling up an engineering organization, onboarding new employees is probably the least well-understood. There are relatively common solutions for large-scale recruitment, finance and administration, but onboarding remains a question that many organizations struggle with.
At Wix we've been struggling with massive scaling challenges: over the last two years our company headcount has doubled itself, and we had to learn to cope with the influx while maintaining velocity. In this talk we'll share with you the story of how we set up Wix Academy, an engineer-driven training organization, the solutions we've developed (and still are!), and what we've learned in our first year of operation.
A presentation given at Velocity 2016 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands (previously at BuildStuff 2015 in Vilnius, Lithuania).
11. Training Kit: Customers
As a Guild Lead, I want to:
• Start onboarding early
• Reduce overhead
• Have quality reference
material
Image: KCNA
12. 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)
13. 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)
14. Training Kit: Design Goals
Guided self-learning
Customizable
Based on external resources
15. 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
16. Development
• Guild Days
– Ask for some volunteers
– Host them for a full day
– Volunteers pick subjects
– Volunteers search &
evaluate material
18. 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
19. 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
20. 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
27. 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
32. Planning
• Week 1: Ramp-up
– Heavy on doctrine (TDD, CD)
– Tech stack (Scala, TypeScript)
• Weeks 2-3: Project time
– Guided bootstrapping
– Constant mentorship
33. 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
34. 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)
36. 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
37. 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)
38. 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!
39. 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)
40. QUESTIONS?
Thank you for listening
tomer@tomergabel.com
@tomerg
http://engineering.wix.com
To contact Wix academy (ask us anything!):
academy@wix.com
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