HR · 30-Day Onboarding Plan
Generate a structured 30-day onboarding plan for a new software engineer — week-by-week milestones, key people, tools checklist, a starter project, and a manager check-in agenda.
Describe the task
Generate a structured 30-day onboarding plan for a new software engineer — week-by-week milestones, key people, tools checklist, a starter project, and a manager check-in agenda.
Persona: Engineering manager preparing for a new hire's first day.
Create a 30-day onboarding plan for a new software engineer joining the platform team at Globex Solutions Inc. Include: - **Week-by-week milestones** (4 weeks). - **Key people** they should meet and why (manager, buddy, peers, cross-functional partners). - **Tools and systems** they need access to (laptop setup, code repo, CI, ticketing, on-call, docs). - **A small starter project** for week 4 — something achievable but visible. - **A 30-day check-in agenda** between the new hire and their manager. Tone: practical, friendly, scannable. Format as a structured document with clear headings.
Before you start
- Decide the role, the team, and (optionally) a starter project before you prompt.
- Open the document workspace / canvas so the draft saves automatically.
- Start a new chat so there is no leftover context from another conversation.
Sample Files
onboarding-plan.md
Template and guidelines for generating a 30-day onboarding plan.
What RedbrickAI does
When you send this prompt, the AI generates a complete structured onboarding document from scratch. It organises the content into labelled sections with week-by-week milestones, a key-people table, a tools checklist, a scoped starter project, and a runnable 30-day check-in agenda — all specific to a platform engineering role at Globex Solutions Inc.
Example output
30-Day Onboarding Plan — Platform Engineer, Globex Solutions Inc.
Week 1 — Orientation and Environment Setup
Primary goal: Get productive quickly and understand the team’s context.
Milestones
- Complete HR, security, and compliance onboarding
- Receive laptop and complete workstation setup
- Gain access to core engineering systems
- Learn the platform team’s mission, priorities, and current projects
- Review the team’s architecture, service catalog, and incident process
- Shadow a teammate in standup, planning, and any relevant support/incident workflows
Outcomes by end of week
- Can log in to all required systems
- Understands what the platform team owns
- Knows who to ask for help and where documentation lives
Week 2 — Domain Learning and Shadowing
Primary goal: Build context through observation and guided participation.
Milestones
- Read key design docs, runbooks, and architecture diagrams
- Pair with the buddy on a small internal task
- Attend team ceremonies and observe how work is prioritized
- Meet cross-functional partners to understand dependencies and expectations
- Review recent incidents or platform changes to learn how the team operates under pressure
Outcomes by end of week
- Can explain major platform components at a high level
- Understands the team’s release, incident, and support workflows
- Has completed at least one small paired task
Week 3 — Guided Contribution
Primary goal: Start contributing independently on low-risk work.
Milestones
- Pick up a small ticket or documentation improvement
- Make a code change in a non-critical area with review support
- Learn the team’s testing, CI, and deployment process
- Participate in a support rotation shadow or on-call simulation if applicable
- Get feedback on communication, code quality, and workflow understanding
Outcomes by end of week
- Has shipped or nearly shipped a small change
- Understands the path from local development to production
- Is comfortable asking for review and navigating the team’s process
Week 4 — Starter Project and First Visible Impact
Primary goal: Deliver a small, visible contribution and prepare for normal team work.
Milestones
- Complete a starter project with clear scope
- Present the work to the team or in a demo
- Review what was learned and identify follow-up areas
- Align with manager on next 30–60 day goals
- Transition from onboarding mode to regular ticket ownership
Outcomes by end of week
- Has delivered something visible and useful
- Feels connected to the team and its delivery process
- Is ready for a steady stream of scoped work
Key People to Meet
| Person | Why |
|---|---|
| Manager | Clarify expectations, priorities, onboarding goals, and 30/60/90-day outcomes, while establishing a feedback cadence and identifying growth areas. |
| Buddy / Onboarding Partner | Get fast answers to day-to-day questions, navigate tools and team norms, and reduce friction during your first few weeks. |
| Platform Team Peers | Understand ownership boundaries, shared services, and team collaboration on incidents/releases, while building relationships for future tickets and designs. |
| Cross-Functional Partners (Product, SRE, Security, QA, DevEx, Support) | Understand how platform work impacts other teams, learn dependencies and escalation paths, and build trust and communication channels early. |
Tools & Systems Checklist
- Hardware & Basic Setup: Set up your company laptop, peripherals, VPN/secure network access, password manager, and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).
- Engineering Access: Obtain permissions for source code repositories, Git hosting, and package registries, while configuring your local development environment and secrets management tools.
- CI/CD & Delivery: Gain access to CI systems, deployment tooling, and dev/staging environments to monitor build pipelines and understand the release process.
- Work Management: Secure access to ticketing systems, team sprint boards, incident queues, and the pager/on-call system (if applicable).
- Documentation & Knowledge Systems: Ensure access to internal wikis, architecture diagrams, operational runbooks, the team handbook, and RFC decision logs.
- Communication & Collaboration: Connect to company chat tools, calendars, video conferencing software, and team mailing lists.
30-Day Check-In Agenda
(Suggested duration: 45–60 minutes):
- Welcome & Reflection: Reflect on how the first month felt, including what was most helpful, confusing, or frustrating.
- Onboarding Progress: Review access/setup status, understanding of the team's mission, relationship-building, and completion of the starter project.
- Technical & Process Feedback: Assess comfort with the codebase and CI/CD flow, and clarify ticketing, deployment, and on-call expectations.
- Collaboration & Support: Evaluate the onboarding buddy relationship and identify any missing peer introductions or team context.
- Performance & Growth: Identify fast-building skills, areas needing more training, and goals for the next 30–60 days.
- Next Steps: Confirm the next project/ticket, agree on learning priorities, and set expectations for increased independence.
What a good answer looks like
| Fact | Expected wording |
|---|---|
| Week 1 — Orientation | Laptop setup, account provisioning, intro meetings, reading list, observe stand-ups — specific to a platform engineer, not generic values onboarding. |
| Week 2 — Codebase ramp-up | Pair on small bugs, architecture walkthrough, first PR (small, low-risk), code review participation both as author and reviewer. |
| Week 3 — Domain ramp-up | On-call shadowing as secondary (mandatory for platform roles), solo ticket ownership, sprint planning contribution, monitoring/alerting stack. |
| Week 4 — Starter project | Named, scoped project that ships to staging by day 30. Not "get familiar with the pipeline" — a concrete deliverable visible to the wider team. |
| 30-day check-in agenda | At least 4 runnable agenda items: what's working, what's blocking, calibration on expectations, manager feedback. |
Pass
All 5 sections present, Week 3 includes on-call shadowing, starter project is scoped and realistic (1–2 weeks, ships to staging), check-in agenda has at least 4 concrete items, document uses headings.
Partial pass
Misses one section, or week-by-week milestones are too vague ("learn the codebase"), or starter project is unrealistic for a new hire in week 4.
Fail
Generic plan with no mention of the platform team or Globex, skips the starter project entirely, or returns a single prose paragraph with no headings.
Try follow-up prompts
Follow-up prompts let you iterate on the document in the same chat — the AI already has full context and can refine specific sections without you repeating the setup.
Initial prompt
“Make the week-4 starter project more concrete — give me 3 options ranked by visibility.”
AI response
Starter Project: Improve a Platform Runbook or Self-Service Workflow