Let’s imagine something for a minute:

You’re house-hunting. You’ve got a knowledgeable realtor — someone who knows the neighborhoods, the prices, the hidden gems.

One day, the realtor calls you about a house. Sounds good, so the next day, you drive over to check it out. The realtor meets you at the door, welcomes you warmly, hands you a neat little booklet with floor plans and house details. He tells you he’ll be waiting in the drawing room while you explore the place on your own. If you have questions, feel free to ask — now or after your tour.

You explore every room, take mental notes, maybe some pictures. You come back with a few questions. He answers what he can. Then, since it’s the weekend and you have time, he suggests checking out another house.

This time, the realtor walks with you. He opens the doors, points out upgrades, explains what’s new in the kitchen, and casually mentions that the HVAC system was replaced last year. When you ask about the lifespan of the appliances, he admits he’s not sure — but says he’ll check and get back to you tomorrow.

Now tell me — between those two houses, which one do you feel like you actually know better?

Chances are, it’s the second one.

Why? Because in the second visit, you didn’t just read the house — you experienced it. You had a guide. You had context & You had conversation.

Learning by Listening: The Human Default

Since childhood, we’ve been trained this way. We had textbooks, sure, but we didn’t just read them — our teachers explained them to us. They walked us through the ideas, made sense of abstract topics, shared stories, drew diagrams, and answered questions.

We absorb more when we’re guided — not just dumped with information and told, “figure it out.”

Yet in the software industry, this is exactly what we do when a new developer joins the team.

Welcome to the Team — Here’s a Wiki, a Repo, and a Week to Figure It Out

Sound familiar?

A new developer joins. We hand them a bunch of Confluence links, documentation, architecture diagrams, Git repos, maybe a Notion page or two. And then we tell them to take a few days to “get familiar.”

They’re left wandering through the codebase like a tourist in a foreign country — one where every building looks like a microservice and the locals speak only in YAML.

The documentation might be good. But it’s still static. It can’t answer follow-up questions. It doesn’t show the why behind the decisions. It doesn’t nudge the new joiner when they’re about to fall into a rabbit hole.

Enter the Buddy System — From Lonely Debugging to Guided Discovery

This is where the buddy system changes everything.

When someone new joins your team, assign them a buddy — someone who’s been around the codebase long enough to know the shortcuts, quirks, and tribal knowledge.

The buddy isn’t expected to have all the answers.

But they do know:

Who to ask when something’s unclear
Where to find the relevant documentation
Why the deployment script includes a weird 30-second sleep
How that one legacy module still works (somehow)

In short, the buddy becomes a human interface to the codebase — someone who helps navigate, explain, and connect the dots. They’re not a manager, not a mentor, but a technical friend who helps make sense of the chaos.

The Impact of a Good Buddy

A good buddy system transforms onboarding from a solo expedition into a dynamic collaboration. It’s not just about finding the right answers — it’s about asking the right questions. It creates a safe space to be curious, to make mistakes, and to learn at your own pace.

And let’s not ignore the social side: building rapport early on makes people more likely to speak up in meetings, ask for help, and contribute confidently. You’re not just onboarding a brain — you’re welcoming a human to the team.

Here’s what a great buddy system looks like:

Week 1: Walkthroughs of services, tooling, pipelines — live, not just documents
Week 2: Pair programming on low-stakes tasks or bug fixes
Regular check-ins: Not just status updates, but conversations about how things are going
Introductions: Help them connect with other team members across domains

It’s the difference between giving someone a map… and walking with them on the path.

Documentation is Important — But People Make It Click

Don’t get me wrong — good documentation is essential. It’s your source of truth. But documentation can’t replace human context, intuition, or mentorship.

Think of it like API docs versus Stack Overflow. You need both. One tells you what a method does; the other tells you how it’s used in real life, with gotchas, examples, and edge cases.

The buddy fills that gap.

Final Thoughts: Don’t Let New Devs Feel Like Strangers

If you’re serious about team health, productivity, and engineering culture — invest in onboarding, even better, invest in people during onboarding.

A buddy system isn’t extra overhead. It’s a multiplier. It reduces time-to-productivity, builds trust, spreads knowledge, and prevents “silent stuck mode” (you know, when a new dev stares at a repo for 3 hours, unsure where to start).

So next time someone joins your team, don’t just give them a house to explore.

Be the realtor who walks them through it.

Point out the cool parts.

Share the quirks.

Let them ask questions.

And make sure they feel at home.

on-boarding new developer