We build an LMS, so the first thing we do is get them onboard using it. You only get one first impression, so it's normally really good to see and for them to feel the product as a new customer would. Take lots of notes, find the rough edges, things that hurt, and then typically pick one of them as the first week task.

Then it's getting the environment setup. Using lots of boring software means this is typically two docker-compose up's and done.

After that is the point you start to see what the candidate's really like we've found. Oftentimes they'll scan through previous commits, see how things are done. We'll set them running, lots of pair programming, for those first few days. An extensive testsuite/CD pipeline help here. The ideal is push to prod by the Friday. In an ideal world it's earlier, if not first day, but the reality is there's normally other business bits such as...

Because we're remote, we try and schedule a couple hour calls with different folks in different roles. We're a small company so it's much more about people then processes without falling into folksy management talk.

Biggest thing is just letting them get a feel for the codebase, people, practices, trade-offs between speed and correctness etc. Everyone's unique.