SRE Onboarding: From In–Person to Remote in 13 Days

COVID–19 changed work and the workplace as we know it around the world. The need for social distancing meant that onboarding new team members also had to change. Google's SRE EDU team had to react and evolve in the face of rapidly changing conditions, pivoting from an in–person orientation experience for new hires with team members flying from different locations to meet together in a classroom to a fully remote experience. This talk will cover how Google's SRE EDU team delivered a work–from–home onboarding experience in 13 days, avoiding disruptions to training operations by applying SRE principles and best practices. We’ll share lessons learned from our Live → Remote postmortem that are expected to be applicable to organizations of all sizes and recommendations for how to make the most of difficult circumstances to set new hires up for success.

• Education Innovation

• Software Systems