Starting a new role as a platform engineer involves quickly grasping complex systems, collaborating with cross-functional teams, and driving infrastructure improvements. A 30-60-90 day plan provides a clear roadmap to help new platform engineers acclimate, set priorities, and deliver impactful results.
This plan breaks down the onboarding journey into three focused phases, each with specific goals, tasks, and milestones tailored to platform engineering responsibilities.
First 30 Days: Orientation and Foundation
In the initial month, the focus is on understanding the company’s platform architecture, tools, and processes. New hires should:
- Familiarize themselves with the platform’s infrastructure, including cloud environments, CI/CD pipelines, and monitoring tools.
- Complete onboarding training sessions covering security policies, deployment workflows, and internal documentation.
- Meet key stakeholders such as DevOps teams, software engineers, and product managers to understand collaboration points.
- Set up development environments and gain access to necessary systems and repositories.
- Begin shadowing platform support activities to observe incident response and troubleshooting procedures.
Days 31-60: Integration and Contribution
During this phase, the platform engineer starts to take on active responsibilities and contribute to ongoing projects:
- Participate in sprint planning and daily stand-ups to integrate with the engineering team’s workflow.
- Take ownership of smaller platform components or automation tasks, such as scripting deployment processes or enhancing monitoring dashboards.
- Collaborate with security teams to implement best practices and compliance measures within platform operations.
- Document processes and update knowledge bases to support team scalability.
- Solicit feedback from peers and managers to identify areas for skill development.
Days 61-90: Ownership and Optimization
In the final onboarding phase, the platform engineer should be driving initiatives and optimizing platform performance:
- Lead efforts to improve platform reliability, scalability, and automation based on observed pain points.
- Design and implement infrastructure enhancements aligned with business goals.
- Mentor junior engineers or onboard new team members to foster knowledge sharing.
- Establish metrics and monitoring to proactively detect and resolve issues.
- Present a 90-day review summarizing accomplishments, challenges, and plans for continued growth.
Benefits of Using This 30-60-90 Day Plan for Platform Engineers
This structured plan helps new platform engineers:
- Accelerate their understanding of complex platform environments and tools.
- Build strong relationships with cross-functional teams essential for platform success.
- Gain confidence through clear, achievable milestones and responsibilities.
- Align their efforts with organizational objectives and engineering best practices.
- Establish a foundation for long-term impact and career growth within the platform engineering domain.
Key Elements of the Template
This plan includes:
- Segmented objectives for each 30-day period tailored to platform engineering tasks.
- Defined action items and milestones to track onboarding progress and contributions.
- Sections for documenting notes, feedback, and lessons learned throughout the onboarding journey.
- Areas to assign accountability and facilitate communication between the new hire and their manager.
By following this 30-60-90 day onboarding plan, platform engineers can confidently navigate their new role, contribute effectively to platform stability and innovation, and set the stage for ongoing success.
