Glue for Developer Onboarding

By Priya Shankar

Hiring a new engineer is expensive. Waiting months for that engineer to become productive makes it more so. Organizations looking to reduce developer onboarding time typically focus on documentation, mentorship programs, and structured learning paths. These approaches help, but they miss the core problem: new developers need to understand the codebase, and the codebase is the one thing that documentation consistently fails to capture accurately.

Glue takes a different approach. Instead of asking senior engineers to maintain onboarding docs, Glue generates codebase understanding directly from the code itself. New developers get answers about architecture, feature locations, and system behavior without waiting for a mentor to become available.

Industry research consistently places the time-to-productivity for new software engineers between three and nine months, depending on codebase complexity and team support. During this ramp-up period, the new hire produces less than their potential while consuming the time of senior team members who answer questions, review code, and provide context.

The costs are substantial. A senior engineer spending two hours per day supporting a new hire loses that time from feature work. Multiply by the number of new hires per quarter and the cumulative productivity impact becomes significant.

Most onboarding programs try to front-load knowledge transfer. The new developer receives architecture diagrams (often outdated), README files (often incomplete), and a series of "onboarding buddy" sessions. These help with organizational context but struggle with the technical specifics that matter most for daily productivity.

The fundamental challenge is that developer onboarding best practices depend on documentation that accurately reflects the current codebase. In practice, documentation drifts from reality within weeks of being written. Code changes daily. Documents change when someone remembers to update them, which is rarely.

New developers quickly learn that the docs cannot be fully trusted. They start relying on asking questions instead. This is effective but expensive. Every question interrupts a colleague. Every answer is delivered once and lost unless someone writes it down.

Glue provides new developers with an always-current, queryable understanding of the codebase. Instead of reading stale docs or interrupting colleagues, new engineers ask Glue.

Architecture exploration. A new developer can ask Glue to explain the high-level architecture, show how services communicate, or describe the data model. Glue generates these answers from the actual code, so they reflect the system as it exists today, not as it was designed six months ago.

Feature location. "Where is the billing logic?" is one of the most common onboarding questions. Glue answers it instantly by pointing to the specific files, modules, and services involved. No Slack thread required.

Dependency mapping. New developers frequently introduce bugs by changing code without understanding its downstream effects. Glue shows which other parts of the system depend on any given module, helping new engineers make changes with confidence.

Context for code review. When a new developer reviews a pull request in an unfamiliar area, Glue provides the background: what the module does, who typically works in it, and how it connects to the broader system. This turns code review from a confusing obligation into a learning opportunity.

Pattern recognition. Glue identifies the coding patterns and conventions used throughout the codebase. A new developer wondering "how do we handle authentication in this project?" gets examples from the actual code rather than a style guide that may be outdated.

The key advantage is availability. Glue does not have meetings. It does not need focus time. It does not forget details. A new developer at 11 PM working through a tricky module can get answers the same quality as at 11 AM. This dramatically reduces onboarding time by removing the bottleneck of human availability.

New developers using Glue during onboarding report three primary benefits.

Faster first contribution. The time from first day to first meaningful pull request shrinks because developers can navigate the codebase independently. They spend less time lost and more time building.

Reduced anxiety. Starting a new job in a complex codebase is stressful. Having a tool that patiently answers any question about the code reduces the fear of "looking stupid" that prevents new developers from asking enough questions.

Better understanding. Paradoxically, self-directed exploration with Glue produces deeper understanding than guided onboarding sessions. New developers follow their own curiosity, exploring the areas relevant to their first tasks rather than sitting through a predetermined curriculum.

For engineering leaders, the return is measurable. Teams using Glue for onboarding report that new developers reach baseline productivity 40 to 60 percent faster than with documentation-only approaches. Senior engineer time recovered from answering onboarding questions can be redirected to feature development and architecture work.

The compounding effect is significant. Every new hire who ramps faster contributes sooner, reducing the effective cost of growing the team.

How does Glue help with developer onboarding? Glue gives new developers a queryable, always-current understanding of the codebase. They can ask questions about architecture, feature locations, dependencies, and coding patterns and get accurate answers generated from the actual code, without interrupting teammates.

Can Glue replace documentation? Glue complements documentation rather than replacing it. Documentation captures decisions, intent, and organizational context that code alone cannot convey. Glue handles the technical "what does this code do and where is it" questions that documentation struggles to keep current.

How fast can new developers ramp with Glue? Teams using Glue report that new developers reach baseline productivity 40 to 60 percent faster. The exact timeline depends on codebase complexity and role, but the reduction in ramp time is consistent across team sizes and tech stacks.