Ask HN: What tools or processes accelerate engineer onboarding?
I recall onboarding a US-based software engineer in 2018-19 was estimated at ~$80–120K (salary, lost productivity, and ramp time). A recent research publication from DX (AI-Assisted Engineering: Q4 Impact Report) [1] offers updated data that reframes how we think about onboarding.
Here are three relevant facts from the report:
1. Onboarding speed improvement:
Engineers using AI coding assistants daily
reached their 10th merged pull request
in about 49 days, compared to about
91 days for engineers not using
new AI-powered tools.
Developers using AI tools report saving
about 3.6 hours per week.
Over 90% of developers across the
sample use AI tools at least monthly.
Few immediate caveats:
- I definitely feel that DX has a biased sample
because eng orgs that use them are surely forward
thinking and the leadership value developer
productivity.
- The 10th merged PR is a DX metric,
so it's possible that's not the best or
there's a better metric design.
1. Call the BS, what's not true in your world?
2. What tools & processes do you swear by, what have you found that doesn't move the needle?
3. Is Onboarding even a problem to focus on and what's a definition of good enough for that process?
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References
1: DX Report: https://getdx.com/uploads/ai-assisted-engineering-q4-impact-report.pdf
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