I onboarded at a > 1000 employee company before the pandemic. Even then I found it frustrating that it took months to have even a small a project and get a PR reviewed and merged. Coming from a small startup co culture made that a shock and wondered if I'd made a mistake. Your journey seems similar but far more challenging in having to onboard remotely. Make the most of communication channels you have, not specifically your manager or onboarding buddy, but any team or project Slack channels, etc. Take time to browse the codebase without worrying about shipping PRs. The company hired you hopefully as a long term investment that will pay off once you've onboarded so do that well, even if it doesn't have any visible artifacts. Merely asking specific questions will show that you are getting up to speed. My #1 suggestion to fix most of these things is to pair program on tasks. There's so much miscellaneous information that is useful and isn't otherwise documented. It also provides some human feedback from peers indicating that there's no problem where you imagine one to be.