Solving the Hiring Bottleneck

In the dev team, we often hire too late, leaving us understaffed and putting extra pressure on existing team members. Our onboarding process takes 6-9 months due to the complexity of our codebase, making it difficult for new hires to get up to speed quickly. This means we’re frequently operating below full capacity, which leads to rushed decisions, slower delivery, and higher stress levels across the team.

At the same time, retention remains a challenge—when team members leave, we not only lose valuable expertise but also make onboarding even harder for newcomers, as fewer experienced developers are available to guide them. Since much of our technical knowledge isn't well-documented, every departure makes our codebase harder to navigate, adding to the cycle of slow onboarding and knowledge loss.

To build a stronger, more resilient team, we need to focus on:

• Hiring proactively to avoid staffing gaps before they become critical.
• Improving retention so we don’t lose expertise faster than we can replace it.
• Smoothing out onboarding by ensuring new hires can ramp up more effectively.
• Capturing and transferring knowledge in a structured way, so key information isn’t lost when people leave.

Discussion Questions:

• How can we better anticipate hiring needs to avoid last-minute pressure?
• How can we improve hiring timelines to avoid constant understaffing?
• What can we do to improve retention and make our company a place where people want to stay?
• How can we make onboarding smoother and more structured, so new hires feel supported and can contribute sooner?
• What systems or practices would make knowledge transfer more reliable?
• Are there ways to support junior hires despite the codebase complexity?
• What changes would improve the hiring and onboarding process so that new hires are productive faster?
• How can we communicate/sync hiring needs more effectively with management?
• Given our salary constraints (covered in the salary discussion), how else can we reach experienced/senior developers?

Why This Is a Problem:

• Slows down development as experienced team members need to train new hires while managing their own workload.
• Leads to burnout and frustration among existing staff.
• Makes it harder to attract top talent since rushed hiring processes can feel unstructured.

Why This Matters:

• A more predictable hiring strategy would help us stay ahead of team needs instead of always playing catch-up.
• Reducing turnover would allow us to build stronger teams, improve collaboration, and retain key knowledge.
• Investing in better onboarding and mentorship could help us integrate new hires faster and make junior roles more feasible.
• Creating a more attractive environment for senior developers would strengthen our team’s long-term expertise.