Comment by foobiekr

Quite a few comments here are saying this is for managers. I don't agree.

This is a perfectly sensible guide for engineers in the second half of their career.

When you are young and fresh, it is the company's job to make use of you and make you productive. Effectively, the first thing they should do is intro you, give you a few learning projects, and help course correct to get you productive. Managers invest time in this so that the manager effectiveness amplification occurs.

When you get old, senior and soulless, once you start getting hired as a lead, this algorithm is basically exactly what you should be doing in your first 30 days. At that point you're almost always being hired to fix something that's broken and it's your job to make yourself productive for the company instead of the other way around and then help make other people productive (or, more often, make other people less unproductive). Putting aside the very rare exception where you are your own brand name and can get vanity projects and total control, the only real exceptions are when you start a fresh company or project and have total control, but those opportunities are comparatively rare. Most senior engineers hired into a new org who are in a leadership position will find these steps quite sensible.