01Why This Plan Exists

Fortini Studio is shifting from bespoke brand-and-web services toward a productized model, and this new Full-Stack Developer is the first dedicated engineering hire the studio has ever made. There is no existing engineering playbook to inherit — Marina Costa (CTO) has been doing double duty as both strategist and sole builder. This plan exists to compress the ramp-up time, give the new hire a clear runway to real ownership, and make sure the studio's tiny (2–10 person) team doesn't lose momentum during the transition.

Because this is a foundational hire, success isn't just "did the tickets get done" — it's whether the studio now has a second person capable of carrying product engineering independently by the end of the quarter. This is a trust-building and infrastructure-building 90 days as much as a feature-shipping one.

Manager: Marina Costa, CTO Core tools: Linear (project tracking), GitHub (code), Vercel (deploys), Figma (design handoff), Slack (day-to-day comms)

02Pre-Day-1 Checklist (Manager-Owned)

Marina should complete these before the new hire's first day so momentum isn't lost to setup friction.

Assumption flagged: since Fortini has no prior engineering hires, there is likely no formal codebase style guide or onboarding doc yet — this plan assumes Marina will draft a lightweight one before day 1 rather than relying on the new hire to reverse-engineer conventions.

03Days 1–30: Orientation & First Ship

Theme: Learn the codebase, the client-facing product surface, and the team's rhythm — then ship something small but real to prove the loop works end to end (code → review → deploy).

Week 1 — Immersion

• Full environment setup; first successful local run of the app and a test deploy to Vercel preview.
• Pair with Marina on 2–3 existing tickets to observe conventions (branching, PR review style, Linear workflow).
• Read through the current product's core flows as a user would — brand intake, project delivery, and any existing credit/billing logic.
• Meet every contractor the new hire will interact with (design, client ops) via a short intro call each.

Week 2 — Guided contribution

• Pick up 2–3 small, well-scoped bugs or polish tickets from the Linear backlog, self-assigned with Marina's sign-off.
• Submit first PR by end of week 2; expect it to go through at least one round of review — this is normal, not a red flag.
• Start a personal "questions log" in Slack DM with Marina rather than blocking on every small doubt in real time.

Weeks 3–4 — First independent feature

• Own one small, self-contained feature or improvement (e.g., a UI polish item, a small automation, or an admin-facing utility) from ticket to deploy with minimal hand-holding.
• Write the PR description and testing notes without prompting — this is the first real signal of independent judgment.
• Day 30 success criteria: ships first small feature to production; understands the full deploy pipeline (GitHub → Vercel); can navigate Linear and Figma independently; has a working mental model of the credit-wallet module's current state (even if not yet touching it directly).

04Days 31–60: Ownership of the Credit-Wallet Module

Theme: Move from "contributor on assigned tickets" to "owner of a defined product area." The credit-wallet module — central to Fortini's productized-model ambitions — becomes this hire's primary responsibility.

Weeks 5–6 — Deep dive and audit

• Full walkthrough of the credit-wallet module's current code, data model, and known issues with Marina (budget a dedicated 2-hour session, not a rushed handoff).
• Produce a short written audit: what works, what's fragile, what's undocumented. This becomes the roadmap for the next four weeks and doubles as a demonstration of technical judgment.
• Take over triage of all new credit-wallet-related bugs and feature requests in Linear.

Weeks 7–8 — Real ownership

• Ship at least one meaningful improvement or fix to the credit-wallet module independently, from spec to deploy.
• Become the default point of contact for any credit-wallet question in Slack — Marina should visibly redirect questions this hire's way to reinforce the ownership shift.
• Begin contributing lightweight documentation for the module (even a single README is a big step up from institutional-knowledge-only).

Day 60 success criteria: the new hire is the clear owner of the credit-wallet module — able to scope, prioritize, and ship changes to it without Marina's line-by-line involvement; Marina's role shifts to review and strategic input only.

05Days 61–90: End-to-End Leadership & Backlog Reduction

Theme: Prove the hire can lead, not just execute — taking a feature from idea to shipped product, and simultaneously restoring engineering hygiene by cutting the bug backlog in half.

Weeks 9–10 — Feature leadership

• Select (with Marina) one meaningful, client-visible feature to lead end-to-end: scoping, breaking into tickets, sequencing work, and driving it to launch. This should be something with real product weight — not a maintenance task.
• Run a short kickoff (even informal, over Slack or a 20-minute call) to align Marina and any contractors on the plan before building.
• Start weekly written progress notes in Linear so status is visible without needing a live meeting.

Weeks 11–12 — Delivery and cleanup

• Ship the led feature to production, including a short post-launch note on what shipped and what's next.
• In parallel, run a structured pass on the bug backlog: triage every open bug in Linear, close stale/invalid ones, batch-fix quick wins, and schedule the rest. Target is a 50% reduction in open bug count from the day-60 baseline.
• Propose one process or tooling improvement based on the first 90 days (e.g., a PR template, a Linear label scheme, a lightweight testing checklist) — a strong signal of ownership beyond just code.

Day 90 success criteria: led a feature end-to-end from scoping to shipped, with visible planning artifacts in Linear; bug backlog reduced by at least 50% from the day-60 count; functioning as a genuine engineering partner to Marina rather than a task-taker.

06Check-In Cadence

Given the size of the team, check-ins should be light on ceremony but consistent — missed 1:1s are the fastest way to lose trust in a two-partner studio.

At each of the three major checkpoints (Day 30, 60, 90), Marina should deliver written feedback, not just verbal — a few paragraphs covering what's going well, what needs to shift, and what "good" looks like for the next 30 days. This matters more in a 2-person leadership team than in a large org, since there's no HR buffer or peer manager to catch drift.

07Success Scorecard

Use this scorecard at each 30-day checkpoint to keep the conversation concrete rather than impression-based.

If any dimension is significantly behind at a checkpoint, that's the trigger for an honest conversation about support needed — not a silent mark against the hire.

08Manager's Role Across the Quarter

Marina's involvement should shrink deliberately over the quarter — this is as much a test of delegation as it is of the new hire's ramp.

• Days 1–30: High involvement. Pair frequently, review every PR, answer questions same-day.
• Days 31–60: Medium involvement. Review at milestones, not every commit; let the new hire drive the credit-wallet audit and roadmap.
• Days 61–90: Light-touch. Act as sounding board and unblocker, not approver-of-record for day-to-day decisions.

Because Fortini has just two partners, Marina should also protect time on her own calendar for this — onboarding a first engineering hire well is a strategic investment in the studio's productized future, not a side task squeezed between client work.