An audit of Capital One’s code integration pipeline received an “ineffective” rating, prompting a redesign of the onboarding experience
There were high levels of code merge errors, causing delays and frustration. The primary source of the errors was lack of procedural knowledge by the newer EASE engineers.
The business goal for the redesign was to have 100% of engineers onboarded within one sprint to reduce these errors.
I led a cross functional team to come up with a solution to reduce the error rate and receive a satisfactory rating on the next audit.
The key to this was inventing a solution that simplified the onboarding process for the engineers.
The existing onboarding wasn’t intuitive, and engineers couldn’t self-serve effectively
UX research revealed that engineers were expected to navigate a laundry list of onboarding materials, then self-certify understanding and completion of the program.
The documentation to complete the program was scattered across the network, with broken links and out of date information.
My strategy was to find and build a working group full of experts because of the special knowledge required for a solution
I set up meetings to talk about scope with our product partners, the outcome being a goal of designing an automated solution.
I created communication plan and regular check ins with our audit consultants.
I scheduled a design standup meeting with our team and invited the audit consultants and product delivery staff to sit in at key decision periods.
Finally, I consulted with HR experts and a Chief of Staff to generate automated invite emails when a new engineer joined the EASE team.
We came up with an automated solution that took the onboarding content and placed it into the company’s learning courseware
Once a new engineer needed to onboard, they received an invite to get their course started, which verified if they completed the reading, passed the course, and got it done on time.
Access to the system was gated via GitHub, which could verify a user’s onboarding status, send automated notices, and redirect users to the onboarding material.
But we hit a snag. The new product VP said that we didn’t have the engineer resources needed to code this solution, and that we needed a manual solution.
I had to rally the team to do the work over again. I pointed out that we could pivot and go faster now that we had all the knowledge and expertise in place. The team was very effective, and this motivated them to move forward.
The manual solution required a few adjustments, but it was completed and delivered a few weeks later.
But we hit a snag. The new product VP said that we didn’t have the engineer resources needed to code this solution, and that we needed a manual solution.
I had to rally the team to do the work over again. I pointed out that we could pivot and go faster now that we had all the knowledge and expertise in place. The team was very effective, and this motivated them to move forward.
