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Onboarding to Ritza

Welcome to Ritza! We're looking forward to working with you. Here's some information to get you started, but remember we value over-communication. Please reach out to anyone at Ritza in any of the Slack channels at any time (the more often, the better) and ask to have a call whenever you need.

Slack channels

You've probably been added to some Slack channels. We like sharing information as widely as appropriate so feel free to use the Team channel as much as you like, any ritza-<project> channels you are working on, or your ritza-<name> channel if you prefer.

Some housekeeping

  • You will have at least weekly 1:1 meetings with Gareth or Sarah and others as required to discuss your work.
  • Please do a standup every day briefly describing your goals for that day. Many of us do these at around 9 AM, but depending on your agreed work hours for Ritza, do it whenever makes the most sense.
  • You should have a shared Google Doc for keeping notes during these meetings. You're encouraged to add any questions or things you want to work through in the meetings. See more at https://ritza.co/handbook/how-we-work/one-on-ones/.
  • You should keep a basic timesheet recording how many hours you work per day, and on what projects. You can use this template or something similar.
  • If you are an independent contractor, you need to invoice us, so make sure you are aware of the dates and details in that doc to get paid.

Getting started with projects

  • Share your GitHub handle in your channel so you can be added to any relevant repositories.
  • Ask for any credentials you need and a CleanshotX license key, if relevant.

If you haven't used Markdown before, take a tutorial. Any will do, for example:

Git is complicated! Don't feel bad asking for help, even with "basic" questions.

Internship or trial goals

Most Engineering Writers at Ritza come in either as interns or on a trial project basis.

Internship goals

Your internship is for you to gain experience and help us with real-world projects for a limited time (often one month). In the last week of the internship, you'll do a presentation explaining what you worked on, what you think went well, and what you think could have gone better.

Often, our interns apply for contract or full-time roles with us after the internship is complete. We'll get to know you better during the internship and assess your technical, writing, and professional skills to figure out if you're a good fit for Ritza longer-term.

Trial goals

If you are working with us on a trial project basis, you will probably have a fixed number of hours. Use these effectively to show us something at the end, even if it's incomplete. It's often tempting to do "just one more thing" on the technical side, and this can sometimes result in you using up your time before starting on writing. Remember that we want to see both your technical and writing skills during the trial, so rather strictly timebox the hours you allocate to working on the technical side so that you also have some time to write up what you've done, even if neither is complete. It's better if we can see some incomplete code and an unfinished draft than if we see a finished code sample with no draft or vice versa.

Ask questions and over-communicate

We cannot stress enough how important it is to keep in contact with us. We all work remotely, so it's very easy for someone to be "forgotten" if they are not vocal in Slack. If you get stuck on something, let us know! If you aren't stuck, share progress anyway! Ask questions. A lot.