Automate New Hire Onboarding

This skill takes on the persona of an onboarding specialist and knowledge-transfer architect, orchestrating a new hire's full experience from pre-arrival preparation through their first 90 days. It parses role details, start date, location, technical requirements, team context, and any fast-track needs from $ARGUMENTS to build a customized plan. Pre-onboarding covers account and access setup (email, Slack, GitHub, AWS, SSO/2FA, hardware shipping), documentation preparation (role package, org chart, welcome packet, welcome videos), and workspace configuration (home-office stipend for remote hires, or desk/badge/parking for on-site). Day 1 is structured into a morning welcome and orientation block (manager 1:1, culture overview, team introductions), an afternoon technical setup block (IT-guided laptop configuration, dev-environment start, security tools), and administrative completion (HR paperwork, benefits, directory photo). A fully worked Day 1 checklist times each block in 30-90 minute increments, from a 30-minute manager welcome through a 90-minute IT-supported laptop setup to a closing 10-minute feedback survey, with a team lunch and a first Git commit ceremony scheduled in the afternoon.

Use it when planning or running onboarding for a new team member - a standard software engineer, a fully remote hire on a distributed team, or an accelerated track for a senior/lead engineer - and when the goal is measurable ramp-up (time to first commit, time to first production deploy) rather than an unstructured first few weeks. It is not a technical skill for git/PR mechanics despite its directory name; its entire content is a people-and-process onboarding playbook. Beyond code ramp-up, it also structures cultural integration: communication norms around Slack etiquette and core hours, curated learning paths covering domain courses, internal tech talks, and product-knowledge sessions (demos, customer personas, roadmap presentations), and knowledge-management practices like documentation contribution guidelines and the ADR (Architecture Decision Record) process.

Week 1 covers codebase immersion (architecture walkthrough, branching strategy, PR review culture, CI/CD introduction, a first PR submitted with buddy guidance) and full local development environment setup (IDE, linters, Git/SSH config, database read-only access, secrets-manager credentials, Docker/Kubernetes access). A dedicated buddy is assigned for 30 days with daily 15-minute check-ins in week 1, tapering per a documented Buddy Responsibility Matrix: 3x/week in weeks 2-3, 2x/week in week 4, weekly through week 8, and bi-weekly through week 12 as the relationship transitions from mentorship to peer. Progress is tracked at three checkpoints: Day 30 (all mandatory training complete, 3+ PRs merged, one process documented, a 10-minute team presentation), Day 60 (a small feature owned end-to-end, on-call shadowing, a technical design contribution), and Day 90 (independent feature delivery, active code review participation, mentoring a newer hire, a proposed process improvement, and a permanent-role performance review). Three fully worked example plans are provided: a standard software-engineer 30/60/90-day plan with day-by-day checklists (10+ commits merged and a first production bug fix by Day 30, a shipped feature and on-call readiness by Day 60, autonomous team contribution and mentoring by Day 90); a remote/distributed-team plan (a documented $1,500 home-office stipend, a Day 1 virtual welcome breakfast, timezone-aware meeting scheduling, and async communication norms, plus ongoing weekly 1:1 video calls and quarterly in-person gatherings where possible); and an accelerated senior/lead-engineer track that compresses leadership introductions, a full architecture deep-dive, and stakeholder meetings into week 1, moves into postmortem review and technical-debt auditing in weeks 2-3, and reaches ownership of a critical technical decision plus a first major architectural proposal by week 4.

Feedback and metrics close the loop: weekly five-question pulse surveys, buddy feedback forms, structured manager 1:1 questions, and an anonymous channel feed into onboarding metrics (time to first commit, time to first production deploy, ramp-up velocity, team-integration satisfaction) and quarterly program retrospectives that update the onboarding handbook, document success stories, and analyze failure patterns to refine buddy-program training. Six execution guidelines anchor how the plan should actually be run: customize it to role/seniority/team context, document everything as reusable artifacts, measure success continuously, iterate rapidly on what isn't working, prioritize human connection alongside technical skills, and maintain daily momentum so the new hire stays engaged rather than stalling between milestones.

Managers, onboarding specialists, or buddies running a new hire's first 90 days who need a structured, measurable plan spanning access setup, technical ramp-up, team integration, and milestone tracking - with ready-made variants for standard, remote, and senior/accelerated onboarding rather than building each plan from scratch every time a new hire starts.