The first month decides whether a remote hire becomes a real teammate or stays an outsider. Use this week-by-week plan to get your offshore team productive fast.
A great hire can still struggle if the first few weeks are chaotic: no access, no context, no one to ask. The good news is that onboarding an offshore engineer isn't harder than onboarding a local one. It just needs to be more deliberate, because nothing gets picked up by overhearing it in the office.
Before day one: remove the blockers
• Accounts and access to email, chat, code repositories, ticketing, cloud consoles and VPN, ready before the start date.
• Hardware and test devices shipped early if the role needs them (firmware boards, phones, prototypes).
• A named buddy on your side who answers the small questions.
• A short welcome doc: what the product does, who's who, where things live and how you ship.
Week 1: context and a quick win
• Walk through the product, architecture and coding standards on a recorded call.
• Get the local environment running and the code building.
• Assign a small, well-defined first ticket that ships to review by the end of the week. An early win builds confidence on both sides.
• Add them to every team ritual: stand-ups, planning, demos and the team chat.
Week 2: real work, real feedback
• Move to normal-sized tickets from the main backlog.
• Do thorough code reviews and explain the why behind comments, not only the fix.
• Hold a short one-on-one: what's unclear, what's slowing them down?
• With 650 Tech Solutions, this is also the end of the free 2-week trial, so it's your natural decision point.
Weeks 3–4: ownership
• Hand over ownership of a small feature or component, start to finish.
• Ask them to write or improve a piece of documentation. Explaining a system is the fastest way to learn it.
• Agree on overlap hours and response expectations so the time difference works for you, not against you.
• Set goals for the next 60 days together.
The 30-day checklist
• ☐ All tools and access working without workarounds
• ☐ At least one change merged to production
• ☐ Attends every team ritual and speaks up in them
• ☐ Knows who to ask for what, without going through a manager
• ☐ Has documented something for the team
• ☐ Clear goals for the next two months
Where we help
We handle the local side: office space, equipment, internet, payroll, HR and attendance. Once your team reaches seven people, a dedicated people manager in Kathmandu keeps an eye on morale and growth at no extra cost. Your team still reports to you, follows your processes and talks to you directly.
Planning your first offshore hire? Get in touch and we'll help you plan the first 30 days.