Your First Week After Switching Jobs: Do These Things

I Ate Lunch Alone on My First Day

Second job change, 2022. First day, nobody invited me to lunch. I was too awkward to ask, so I ate a triangle kimbap from the convenience store. That evening I seriously wondered "can I make it here?" (The kimbap was actually pretty good, so I wasn't that depressed.)

By my third job change, things were different. I had developed my own first-week checklist by then.

Don't Try to Do Actual Work on Day One

I mean it. Don't try to write code on your first day. Let go of the ambition to finish your dev environment setup on day one. Day one is for understanding people.

Who does what, which Slack channel to ask questions in, what time people usually go to lunch. These trivial details are critical for surviving your first month. At my second company, I spent day one wrestling with environment setup and didn't talk to anyone for three days straight.

Ask Questions While You're Still New

This is the most important one. During your first week, "I'm new, I don't know" is perfectly acceptable. Ask the same question a month later and it becomes "you still don't know?" (Nobody actually said that to me, but I've gotten that look.)

At my third company, I asked about everything in week one: deployment process, code review conventions, branching strategy, on-call rotation, incident response procedures. Nobody thought it was weird. They actually said "you're thorough."

Even if there's documentation in Notion or Confluence, always ask a person too. About 70% of documentation is outdated. The docs said "2 PR reviewers required" but in practice, everyone merged with just one approval.

Three Things to Do in Your First Week

First, schedule a 1:1 coffee chat with every team member. 15 minutes is enough. Don't ask "what do you do?" Ask "what's the biggest challenge on the team right now?" This single question reveals the team's dynamics.

Second, if you find something missing in the onboarding docs, add it right away. This shows initiative and helps the next new hire. At my third company, I updated the environment setup docs in week one and the team lead gave me a shout-out on Slack.

Third, pick up a small issue and submit a PR. Bug fix, type correction, anything. The sooner you submit your first PR, the faster you learn the team's coding style through code review. I submitted my first PR on Thursday of week one. Got 14 review comments. Those 14 comments were more effective than a month of reading style guides.

What Not to Do in Your First Week

"At my previous company, we did it this way." Hold this in for at least 3 months. No matter how good your intentions, existing team members will react defensively. I made this mistake at my second company. Week one: "At my last job we used PR templates, maybe we should try that here?" The room went cold. (When I suggested the same thing 3 months later, they agreed without hesitation.)

And no matter how urgent things seem, don't work late in your first week. It sends the wrong signal about your read on the team culture. The first week is for adjusting, and pushing too hard during adjustment leads to burnout within three months.