A 30-60-90 for an embedded engineer should read: shipping meaningful code by day 30, owning a workstream by day 60, and making the surrounding team better by day 90. Embedded talent is hired for speed, so the plan is compressed compared to a classic employee ramp, and it should be written down before day one.
The plan at a glance
| Checkpoint | Focus | Evidence it's on track |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1-30 | Ship and absorb context | First PR in week one; meaningful feature in production; knows the domain vocabulary |
| Day 31-60 | Own a workstream | Runs their area without hand-holding; scopes their own work; flags risks early |
| Day 61-90 | Multiply the team | Docs and patterns others reuse; pairs with in-house engineers; measurable outcome delivered |
What the host team owes them
- Access sorted before day one: repos, environments, data, communication channels.
- A named counterpart in-house who answers context questions fast.
- A real first task that ships, not a sandbox exercise.
- Clear definition of the day-60 workstream and its success metric.
How to review each checkpoint
Hold a 30-minute review at each milestone against the written plan. If day 30 slipped, diagnose honestly: was it access and onboarding (your side) or capability (theirs)? Embedded engagements make this easy to correct, adjust scope, swap the person, or fix your onboarding, but only if the checkpoints exist.
