Onboarding like no other: The first 100 days at hyperexponential for a Platform Engineer

At hyperexponential, we believe that a great onboarding experience is essential to ensuring that new 'hxers' feel comfortable and empowered enough to achieve their goals, which is why we've carefully designed our onboarding process and are committed to improving it with feedback from older team members.  

An excellent onboarding process is not just about helping people to understand the bare minimum to do their role – it's about providing a solid foundation that allows them to hit the ground running and make valuable contributions from the start. 

Meet Nitesh Patel, a Platform Engineer at hyperexponential. Nitesh joined the company over 100 days ago, has completed his onboarding, and is already settled in and making a notable impact on his team. Today, he's sharing his experience so far in this blog. Keep reading to learn more. 

From big Corp to start-up: Onboarding makes a difference  

My experience and background have been in large corporate organisations from the start of my career, so joining a start-up was slightly daunting due to the company's small size and not knowing what to expect. I still took the jump, and it was the best decision I ever made. 

In my first 1-2 weeks of joining hyperexponential, I experienced the best onboarding process I have ever seen in my career. There were structures and milestones to the onboarding, with everything in place and ready for me to get going from my first day. I had weekly check-ins with the Operations team to provide feedback on the already amazing onboarding process and was also assigned a buddy to help me ease into my role and the company. My buddy was willing to answer any questions I had and help me make the best out of my first month. The entire experience was refreshing and helped me start my time on a strong note.  

Getting settled at hyperexponential

Once I completed my onboarding, it was time to get to work. I was nervous about joining a primarily remote team since it can be challenging to blend into, but it was the opposite at hyperexponential. The team were happy to be online and join various calls to share their knowledge and help me feel settled. Some colleagues even decided to make a trip into the office so we could meet face to face for team bonding. As time went on, I got to understand the ways of working within the engineering team and how everyone collaborates to achieve our goals.

Joining a start-up is not all fairies and rainbows. It can be challenging as there are many expectations, but I'm enjoying my experience. I've been given the opportunity to make suggestions and changes to improve the company and its product and that's very important to me.  

Key culture takeaways so far 

hyperexponential has a mantra called "health, family, hx", which means personal health and family come before the company, and everyone lives by this principle. I have a young family, and hyperexponential has never made me feel like I have to choose between them and work. In fact, senior management has encouraged me to spend more time with my family, which is comforting. 

Transparency and kindness are other vital aspects of the company culture, making life at hyperexponential feel like you are part of an extended family. Most importantly, there is always a safe place to voice opinions and concerns, which are acted on to make positive changes for the future.