Onboarding new joiners
Let new engineers and managers learn why the system works the way it does, without waiting on colleagues.
A new engineer can read the code on day one. What they can’t read is why it works the way it does. That answer usually sits with one busy colleague, so they wait, guess, or ask the wrong person. Developers already spend about 58% of their time understanding existing code (Xia et al., 2018), and a new joiner spends more.
AppThentic gives them the reasons on day one, from the people who decided.
Day one: the map of their area
A new joiner on the payouts team opens their area and sees every business rule in it, with its owner and status. They can tell straight away which rules are settled and which they should not rely on yet.
- Seller payouts wait 24 hours after deliveryApproved
- Accounts younger than 7 days cannot withdrawApproved
- Payouts above ₹5 lakh need a second approverStale
- Sellers in one state are paid weekly, not dailyUnknown
Stale means the reason was approved, but something has changed since and the owner has been asked again. Unknown means nobody has given a reason yet. Both are shown, never hidden. See Rule statuses.
Week one: asking why
Instead of interrupting a senior engineer, the new joiner asks AppThentic. The answer is the owner’s own, with its sources.
Why are sellers in one state paid weekly? It looks like a bug. Can I make it daily like everyone else?
There is no approved reason for this rule yet, so don't treat it as a bug. It was added in 2023 by someone who has since left. Its current owner is the Head of Payments, and I have asked them why. I'll tell you when they answer.
Two days later the Head of Payments answers: that state’s tax rules require payouts to be batched weekly. The rule becomes Approved, and the next person who asks gets that reason straight away.
Before their first change
Before they change a rule, the new joiner sees what depends on it and who must agree. Their first pull request goes to the right reviewer with the reason attached, not to whoever happens to be online. See Changing a rule safely.
What a manager sees
- Which rules in the area are Unknown or Stale, so new joiners are pointed away from them.
- Which questions new joiners ask most. A question asked five times is a gap in the memory, and AppThentic asks its owner first.