How to prepare for a new job in software engineering.
No matter if it is your first job ever or you decide to move to another company, it's always a nerve-wracking experience to start a new position. Here are some tips from me, who recently changed positions after 3 years, on how to make your starting experience as smooth as possible.
Wrapping up your old job
Back up any personal or private information.
Some companies allow private usage of their working devices. So if you have any personal data there, like e-mails, logins and passwords bookmarks or any downloads, you want to save them for yourself. As most companies do not allow to attach private hard drives to their devices it is best to use a private cloud storage like dropbox, google drive or iCloud. After you have everything secured, delete it from the device. Don t forget to also unlink personal accounts with the device like a google account or your apple id.
Back up your working environment.
Especially as a Software Engineer over the years of working You probably configured everything down to the detail how you like to work. May it be the shortcuts and colour scheme of the terminal, your editor or even colours used for slack. Many of these configuration files. which do not contain any personal or company information, can be imported again into the tools once you installed them in your new device. So save yourself some precious time and backup these for future use.
Note down all your favourite working tools.
I already mentioned the configuration files of your favourite tools, but how about the software themselve? It's best to have a list of all the tools you use daily and check in with your new company if they have licenses for these. Over the years I purchased myself some of these tools because I also use them privately like my e-mail client (postbox) or my favourite git GUI (gitKraken).
Download and save all important documents.
In this case, I am talking about any documents that you might need for doing your taxes or papers you will need for your health insurance, like pay-slips. travel expenses or contracts. Here especially any additions you had later to your working contracts or pension schemas etc. These documents might have either send to you via e-mail to your companys account or the company used a personal management platform like bamboo or personio.
Safely dispose of any work-related papers.
Might be any pre-versions of contracts you worked on, things you lectured, project plans, emails or presentation notes. Anything that could contain internal information from the company. Some offices have safe-deposit trash cans for papers and hard drives if that's not available to you use at least a shredder to destroy the information before putting it into normal recycling.
Note down the names and contacts from the HR-Team
There might be cases you need to get in touch with them again if there are questions around past salary, health insurance or other benefits you had while working there. So it's best you know how you can reach them directly.
Get excited about your new position
Buy a new notepad.
Every year I buy a new journal to plan and be excited about the new opportunities ahead of me. The same goes for a notepad that I use for taking notes, writing to-do lists and setting goals for every day at work. Often companies give you one as part of their onboarding gifts, but I am super specific about my journals and notepads. So I love to go to the stationery shop and probably also buy a new set of pens and cute stickers with it.
Write down expectations and set yourself goals
What do you expect from your new position? What tasks do you want to do? What things do you want to learn? What do you want to achieve and how do you want to have an impact in your new role? Write these things down in your new notepad and check them regularly, maybe also during 1:1 with your manager, during your first months working there. Especially in this phase you can get carried away with all the onboarding and don’t recognize that the position is not how you imagined it when signing the contract. Having it written down will help you decide if the position is what you expected and if you want to stay with the company.
Check-in with HR and office management
Talk with them about any personal needs when it comes to furniture, hardware or accessibility of office rooms. Especially if you are the first person with a disability the company hires, there might be things they never thought about. At least in Germany, you can also get help from the Agentur für Arbeit if there is anything more expensive to buy or to change in the office to accommodate it for you.
Have a checklist for setting up your work environment.
Remember all the backups and lists we did from your old working environment? Now it's time to put those to work and make setting up your new devices a pleasant and smooth experience. For some of those tools, there is an order in which you have to install them in order to make it work. E.g. you first have to install Xcode and the developer tools on a Mac before you can start setting up your terminal and node. Also, you might first want to install your favourite browser before even starting to do anything else on that new machine.
Take some time off and rest.
Even if you regularly go on vacation, often you will still think during these times about projects you currently work on or problems you want to solve. But between jobs, there is no such thing. Nothing from the old company is your concern anymore. And the problems of the new company you don’t know of yet. So enjoy the sweet absence of worries and deadlines while you can.
