research-article

Reflections on onboarding practices in mid-sized companies

Authors:

Giovanni Viviani,

Gail C. MurphyAuthors Info & Claims

CHASE '19: Proceedings of the 12th International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering

Pages 83 - 84

https://doi.org/10.1109/CHASE.2019.00027

Published: 27 May 2019 Publication History

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Abstract

The success of a software company is largely dependent upon the people who comprise the company. Given the pace at which most software needs to be produced, software companies need to make sure that new developers become as productive as quickly as possible when hired. The process of integrating new hires, often referred as onboarding, has been well studied in the context of large companies that have significant resources to bring to bear on the process. How onboarding occurs in smaller companies with fewer resources is less understood. To investigate how smaller companies address onboarding, we performed a case study, interviewing eight developers from a local company with a development team of about 100. We asked the developers what practices they experienced during their onboarding with the company. We found a high reliance on a buddy system and extensive use of code reviews to instruct developers in best practices.

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Cited By

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Perpétua SVieira SPortela CSouza M(2023)A Systematic Mapping Study of the Onboarding Process in Software Development OrganizationsProceedings of the XXII Brazilian Symposium on Software Quality10.1145/3629479.3629500(11-20)Online publication date: 7-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3629479.3629500
Foundjem AEghan EAdams B(2021)Onboarding vs. Diversity, Productivity, and QualityProceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering10.1109/ICSE43902.2021.00097(1033-1045)Online publication date: 22-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE43902.2021.00097
Azanza MIrastorza AMedeiros RDíaz OErdogmus HMoreno A(2021)Onboarding in software product linesProceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering: Joint Track on Software Engineering Education and Training10.1109/ICSE-SEET52601.2021.00022(122-133)Online publication date: 25-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE-SEET52601.2021.00022
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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

CHASE '19: Proceedings of the 12th International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering

May 2019

159 pages

Conference Chairs:
Yvonne Dittrich
IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark
,
Fabian Fagerholm
University of Helsinki, Finland, Blekinge Inst. of Technology, Sweden
,
Rashina Hoda
The University of Auckland, New Zealand
,
David Socha
University of Washington-Bothell
,
Igor Steinmacher
Northern Arizona University

Publisher

IEEE Press

Publication History

Published: 27 May 2019

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ICSE '19

Sponsor:

SIGSOFT
IEEE-CS

ICSE '19: 41st International Conference on Software Engineering

May 27, 2019

Quebec, Montreal, Canada

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Overall Acceptance Rate 47 of 70 submissions, 67%

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ICSE 2025

2025 IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering

April 26 - May 3, 2025

Ottawa , ON , Canada

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Cited By

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Perpétua SVieira SPortela CSouza M(2023)A Systematic Mapping Study of the Onboarding Process in Software Development OrganizationsProceedings of the XXII Brazilian Symposium on Software Quality10.1145/3629479.3629500(11-20)Online publication date: 7-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3629479.3629500
Foundjem AEghan EAdams B(2021)Onboarding vs. Diversity, Productivity, and QualityProceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering10.1109/ICSE43902.2021.00097(1033-1045)Online publication date: 22-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE43902.2021.00097
Azanza MIrastorza AMedeiros RDíaz OErdogmus HMoreno A(2021)Onboarding in software product linesProceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering: Joint Track on Software Engineering Education and Training10.1109/ICSE-SEET52601.2021.00022(122-133)Online publication date: 25-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE-SEET52601.2021.00022
Medeiros RJuristo N(2021)Unburdening onboarding in software product linesProceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings10.1109/ICSE-Companion52605.2021.00121(260-262)Online publication date: 25-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE-Companion52605.2021.00121

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