The Engineer's Playbook: Starting a New Role

@pcameronpresley
The Engineer’s Playbook
Starting a New Role

@pcameronpresley
Hello!
I’m Cameron Presley
You can find me at:
@PCameronPresley
https://blog.thesoftwarementor.com
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@pcameronpresley
Four Pillars To Success
What Constitutes Success?
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@pcameronpresley
What Does Success Look Like?
Are you fitting in with your team?
Do you feel like you can do your best work ?
Are you able to take on work solo?
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@pcameronpresley
Working Solo, Workin Alone?
When an engineer can own a story or
feature independently
Does not mean work alone, but has the
tools, skills, and knowledge to self-serve
and accomplish tasks
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@pcameronpresley
How Do We Get Here?
Problem - What are we trying to solve?
Technology Stack – What tools do we use to solve the
problem?
Processes – How do we work together to solve the
problem?
People – Who am I working with to solve the problem?
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@pcameronpresley
Sounds Easy, Right?
It’s not reasonable to be an expert in all
four pillars at once
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@pcameronpresley
Sounds Easy, Right?
Our goal is to establish a base foundation of
knowledge, and then over time, raise our
awareness
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@pcameronpresley
Sounds Easy, Right?
This builds up confidence and will help you
become comfortable to tackle the next parts
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@pcameronpresley
Prerequisites
Before we begin, what do we need?
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@pcameronpresley
How Do Notes Help?
You’re going to learn a lot of things
Notes help be helping you retain
information and giving a way to find this
information later
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@pcameronpresley
Format and Medium Doesn’t Matter
It doesn’t matter the tool or the format of
the notes that you take, as long as you can
find the information you’re looking for
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@pcameronpresley
Keeping Track of What’s Happening
Keeping Track of Development Work
Keeping Track of Non-Development Work
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@pcameronpresley
Keeping Track of What’s Happening
How do you keep track of what to do and
when to do it?
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@pcameronpresley
Using a Mental List Is Not Great…
You need a system to know what tasks need
to be done, their priority, and to know when
the task is done
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@pcameronpresley
How Do I Do It?
A general process for
capturing tasks, prioritizing
work, and getting things
done
Does not use any one tool
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@pcameronpresley
Remember your ABCs
Always
Be
Closing
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@pcameronpresley
Remember your ABCs
Always
Be
Closing
Curious
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@pcameronpresley
Make sure you’re asking at least three
questions a day
This helps check your understanding and
helps build confidence
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@pcameronpresley
Understanding the Problem
What are we trying to do?
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@pcameronpresley
Why Are We Here?
At the end of the day, you were brought on
to help solve a problem
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@pcameronpresley
Why Are We Here?
This problem is complex, has a bunch of
terminology, and complex rules
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@pcameronpresley
Why Are We Here?
This problem and solution is known as the
domain
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@pcameronpresley
What Are Possible Domains?
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Wholesale Mortgage Industry
Helping our partners close
their client’s loans quickly
and efficiently
SQL Server Database
Monitoring
Helping database admins
discover performance
problems before their users do
to prevent loss of reputation
Government Project
Management
Helping planners manage
resources and dependencies
for when plans change

@pcameronpresley
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Helping database administrators
discover performance problems
before their users do
to prevent loss of reputation
Who are we helping? What are we doing to help?
Why do they care?

@pcameronpresley
Why Do They Need Our Software?
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Manual processes are
painful
Regulatory
Cheaper
to
outsource

@pcameronpresley
Learning who uses the software, what we
do to help, and why they care are
fundamental to engineering
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@pcameronpresley
Once you understand, you can be more
effective with your learning and how to
solve the problem
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@pcameronpresley
Learning the Domain
Domains are complex and can take months
(or years) to fully understand
There is a core amount of knowledge that
can handle the majority of the problem
Focus on common workflows, not edge
cases
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@pcameronpresley
Leveling Up Domain Knowledge
Remember your ABCs
Ask questions and ask them how they knew
that
Blog posts, wikis, books, articles, other
industry resources?
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@pcameronpresley
Learning Domain Terms
Hear a term in a meeting and you don’t
know it? Write it down for later, you’re
taking notes, right?
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@pcameronpresley
Learning Domain Terms
If the meeting is smaller (team level or
smaller), ask the question
“Sorry for the interruption, but I’m not
sure if I know what ___ means, can you
explain it”
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@pcameronpresley
Speaking the Language
When working with your team, make sure
to use the same terminology.
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@pcameronpresley
Speaking the Language
For example, if there are multiple kinds of
users who use your product, mixing up the
kinds can cause issues of understanding
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@pcameronpresley
the Technology Stack
How are we solving the problem?
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@pcameronpresley
All of the technologies used to create the
software is colloquially known as the
Technology Stack
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@pcameronpresley
Certain problems lend themselves to be
solved in a certain way
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@pcameronpresley
Need a way for someone to enter data that
can be seen by others?
A web application with a database is a way
to solve that problem
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@pcameronpresley
At a high level, we know we will need
 Something to display (UI/Front-End)
 Something to handle requests (API/Back-End)
 Database for storing data (DB)
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@pcameronpresley
Breaking It Down
Breaking down a system into its parts like
this is known as the system architecture for
the application
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@pcameronpresley
Front-End
Example Web Application 2
Back-End
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fe
xercism%2Fmeta%2Fissues%2F27&psig=AOvVaw00FuZ_E-hzZMt-
xokgmWA9&ust=1648410801832000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA
sQjRxqFwoTCJjTv_rG5PYCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
But What Are Some Example Technologies?
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Front-End
Back-End
Database
Database

@pcameronpresley
Dealing with Complexity
As you can imagine, the code needed for the
problem can be quite complex
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@pcameronpresley
Depending on the company, engineers
could own the whole thing or a small piece
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@pcameronpresley
Focusing on you and your team owning a
portion of the application
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@pcameronpresley
Putting Things In Context
While learning about the domain, you
should be learning how your piece
(component) relates to the problem
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Putting Things In Context
Once you understand that, you can start
building knowledge of what other
components your component interacts with
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What’s In a component?
A component is written in a language, and it
will use multiple libraries that in turn work
with a framework to solve a problem.
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Angular is a web application framework
Various pieces are written in the TypeScript
language
One or more libraries are used for testing, making
API calls, and more
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com
%2Fexercism%2Fmeta%2Fissues%2F27&psig=AOvVaw00FuZ_E-
hzZMt-
xokgmWA9&ust=1648410801832000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved
=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCJjTv_rG5PYCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
Front-End
Back-End Database

@pcameronpresley
Learning The Technology Stack
If you already have experience with the
language and frameworks, focus on
learning how they’re being used here
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@pcameronpresley
Learning The Technology Stack
If you don’t have any experience, then you
need to start learning the language and
framework.
Find recommended books, videos, docs, or
posts to help get you started
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@pcameronpresley
Quickest Way To Learn Something?
Go build something with it! Doesn’t have to
be world-changing, just something to get
started with
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@pcameronpresley
Building From Experience
Learning Angular and TypeScript? Try
building a simple web app
Learning ASP.NET Web API and C#? Try
building out some simple APIs and use
them
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@pcameronpresley
Leveling Up Over Time
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Learning From Others
Don’t forget, you’re working with a great
team of engineers who want you to succeed
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@pcameronpresley
Being Selective On What To Learn
Like problem domain, there are certain
things you should learn first as they’re
most likely to be changing.
Learning how we calculate rates is more
important than learning how
authentication works
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@pcameronpresley
Going From Idea To Reality
What processes do we follow to solve the problem?
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@pcameronpresley
Intro to the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
How do we go from idea to our code being
used by others?
No matter the size of the company, there is
some process
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Intro to the Software Development LifeCycle (SDLC)

@pcameronpresley
Learning About Development
Development is focused on writing the code
needed for new functionality or bug fix.
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How do I get the code on my machine?
How do I build/run the application?
How do I share my changes with others?
How do I deploy my changes to production?
How does work get assigned?
How do I know what to work on?
How do we know if the work is “done”?
Technical Knowledge Process Knowledge

@pcameronpresley
Example Process
The code is stored in GitHub so when starting
work, we get the latest changes from there.
When ready, we create a feature branch,
commit changes locally, and when work is
done, we create a pull request to merge the
changes back into main.
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@pcameronpresley
Learning About Testing
Testing is making sure that functionality
that’s been written is working as intended.
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How do I run the automated tests?
What’s the naming convention of tests?
Do we follow BDD or TDD standards?
Where do I store the tests at?
Who’s responsible for testing?
Who’s responsible for creating the tests?
One of the tests fail, what happens next?
If I have a request for testing, who do I
speak to?

@pcameronpresley
Example Process
Engineers are expected to write unit,
integration, and end-to-end tests. However,
we have a separate team that handles both
performance testing and security testing.
Before we release this new feature, we need to
schedule time with them so they can run their
tests
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@pcameronpresley
Learning About Releases
Releasing is the process of deploying our
code to our users
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What environments are there?
How do I make changes to our deploy steps?
What tools do we use to deploy our code?
What tools do we use to monitor our code?
Who deploys code to an environment?
Who makes the decision to deploy?
Do I need to work with anyone to make a
change to the environment?

@pcameronpresley
Release Example
We have three environments: test, beta, and
production. Code automatically gets deployed
to test once a pull request has been merged in.
The test environment is typically for our
automated end-to-end tests. If all looks good,
the engineer will push their changes to beta
where we have more realistic workloads.
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@pcameronpresley
Release Example
Assuming things look good, product and
engineering decide when to push to
production.
To help keep deployments consistent, we use a
tool called CircleCI that allows us to script our
builds and deployments.
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@pcameronpresley
This Seems Like a Lot…
Learn by working with others
Built-in way to ask questions
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@pcameronpresley
Reason Behind The Madness
A common metric for how well a company
is onboarding an engineer is how quickly
the new engineer can deliver something to
production
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@pcameronpresley
I’ve Got The Steps, But How Do I Know What To Work ON?
To help organize work, companies typically
use some type of software methodology to
bring in work, break it down, and
communicate it out
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@pcameronpresley
Common Methodologies
Scrum, Kanban, SAFE
Waterfall, Spiral Driven Development
Rapid Application Development
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@pcameronpresley
Common Methodologies
If you know the methodology, then you
already know 80% of what the company is
doing
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@pcameronpresley
Example Methodology - SCRUM
Our goal is to deliver value in two week
cadences (called sprints).
At the beginning, we meet as a team to talk
about what work we can accomplish this
sprint, called planning.
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@pcameronpresley
Example Methodology - SCRUM
During the sprint, we have a stand-up
meeting where we talk about what we did
yesterday, gameplan for today, and any
blockers.
At the end of the sprint, we have a
retrospective to discuss what’s working,
what’s not working, and possible solutions
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@pcameronpresley
Getting Into The Groove
As time progresses and you get used to the
process, you’ll develop a rhythm and start
contributing to the process instead of
following along
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@pcameronpresley
The People
Who Do I Work With To Succeed?
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@pcameronpresley
If you want to go quickly, go alone
If you want to go far, go together
- African Proverb
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Team Leader/Engineering Manager
The person you report to
Helps set your priorities
Can help direct your questions to the right
person
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@pcameronpresley
Building Relationships
Ideally met them during the interview
Scheduling an intro conversation
Get to learn their expectations and a bit
about them
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@pcameronpresley
Building Expectations
Make sure to get a 1-1 scheduled on a
regular cadence
Ask them how you’re doing, things you
should be focusing on, etc…
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@pcameronpresley
Building Relationships
Get to know your leader
What are they like outside of work? Any
hobbies or interests?
You don’t have to be their best friend, but
you do need to be friendly
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@pcameronpresley
Be Successful Together
You’re going to be spending the majority of
your time with your team
Need to know them and understand how to
work with them
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@pcameronpresley
Meeting With Your Mentor
Who’s helping you onboard?
Schedule an intro conversation with them
Daily sync-up or pairing sessions
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@pcameronpresley
Once You Get Comfortable
Start meeting the other members of your
team
Schedule intro conversations and get to
know your teammates
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@pcameronpresley
Example Intro Conversation
Introducing myself
Have them introduce themselves
Take the conversation based on their intro
Basic Questions
- Role on the team, greatest strength
- What are things that you could help me with?
- What’s a characteristic you appreciate in a teammate?
- What’s a characteristic you despise in a teammate?
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@pcameronpresley
What Does a Team Look Like?
Consist of Software Engineers with various
skill levels (associate to senior)
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@pcameronpresley
What Does a Team Look Like?
Can vary wildly, might also have
 Scrum Masters
 Business Analysts
 Product Owners
 Testers
 Support Engineers
 DevOps Engineers
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@pcameronpresley
Getting To know Teammates In Person
Make small talk when you bump into them
Invite them for a conversation over coffee
or lunch
Pair with them on their work or vice-versa
If possible, attend team activities
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@pcameronpresley
Getting To Know Teammates Virtually
Lots of the same approaches, but more
intentional
Schedule time for catching-up (either
through coffee or lunch)
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@pcameronpresley
My Approach For Learning About People
I create a list of questions for the
conversation, and we’ll cover what we can
My goal of the conversation is to have the
other person talk about 2/3 of the time
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@pcameronpresley
Getting To know The Team
Questions of the Day (QotD) and see how
people respond (it also generates convos)
1. What is your go-to snack?
2. What's one thing you know better than anyone on the
team?
3. If your safety was guaranteed, would you rather
explore deep space or the oceans?
Example questions at https://bit.ly/questions-of-the-day
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@pcameronpresley
As Time Progresses
As you get settled in and attend meetings,
you’re going to pick up who the main
people you’re going to interact with
Next steps is getting to know them.
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Example Progression
 Meeting my team lead
 Meeting the various members of my
team (all engineers and one product
owner)
 Meeting other engineers of a team we’re
currently collaborating with
 Meeting support engineers after dealing
with a production issue
 Setting up a quarterly skip-level meeting
with my leader’s leader

@pcameronpresley
The BluePrint
What’s our game plan?
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@pcameronpresley
The BluePrint
Trello Board
https://bit.ly/engineers-playbook-new-role-board
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@pcameronpresley
General Advice
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@pcameronpresley
There will always be more work than there
is time, pacing yourself is important
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@pcameronpresley
People over Product
Cherish the relationships more than
shipping
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@pcameronpresley
You’re going to be mentally exhausted
New names, phrases, people, processes,
commute
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@pcameronpresley
Secret of being self-sufficient?
Figure out how others do their work!
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@pcameronpresley
Thank You!
Slides and resources can be found at
https://bit.ly/qc-bytes-2022
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