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Team Building8 min read

Engineering Onboarding Economics: The First 90 Days Make or Break Retention

Engineers who have a structured onboarding are 69% more likely to stay 3 years.

By Richard Ewing·

The 90-Day Window

SHRM: structured onboarding increases 3-year retention by 69%. Engineering-specific onboarding should include: codebase orientation (week 1), first meaningful contribution (week 2-3), full feature ownership (month 2), and first architecture review (month 3).

Investment: 40 hours of team time per new hire ($5K). Return: 69% retention improvement = $138K saved per prevented departure (at $200K replacement cost).

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Published Work

This article expands on ideas from my published work in CIO.com, Built In, Mind the Product, and HackerNoon. View published articles →

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Richard Ewing

The Product Economist — Quantifying engineering economics for technology leaders, PE firms, and boards.