I spent 2 weeks reading outdated docs at my new job - so I discussed with 20 devs about it

SayoojGN — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 11:35:46 +0000

What They Said

Finding #1: The "2-Week Productive Gap"

Around 17 said it takes 1-2 weeks minimum for new devs to become productive.

senior devs spend 10-15 hours per hire just answering the same questions over and over again like:

"Where's the login flow?"
"Why did we choose Redis over PostgreSQL for sessions?"
"How do I set this project up locally?"

Finding #2: The Real Problem Isn't Missing Documentation

13 out of 20 said they had documentation.
But new developers still asked questions instead of reading it.
Why?
"Because half of it is outdated, and we don't know which half."
The docs existed. They just couldn't be relied upon especially in fast-paced projects where things change daily.

I asked developers what tools they currently use

Notion/Confluence (Common standard):

Great for writing docs
manual updation of docs to stay up to date
Nobody trusts them after 6 months

GitHub README:

Looks similar to code (good)
Manual maintenance (bad)
Goes stale

Claude Code / ChatGPT (The trendy one):

Can explain specific code files
Doesn't have PR history or context
Automatically creates documentation after providing necessary code files as context, but require manual trigger or prompt to keep them up to date

Based on the discussions, here's what I believe would actually help

Documentation That Auto-Updates

New code merged -> docs automatically regenerate -> always accurate.
No manual maintenance. No stale docs.

Searchable Knowledge on Architecture / Design

Not just "what the code does" but "why we built it this way".
Indexed from:

Code + comments
PR descriptions & discussions
Architecture decision records

RAG-Powered Onboarding Assistant

Imagine a new dev could ask:
"How does authentication work in this codebase?"
And get back sure shot answers with context on the codebase.

Instead of:

Searching GitHub for 15 minutes
Reading 6 outdated docs
Finally asking a senior dev

How long does onboarding take at your company? Is it days, weeks or months?
What's the biggest bottleneck? Is it Finding information?
Understanding why decisions were made?
Knowing who to ask?

I am really interested to know your Honest Feedback or Experience :)
Before I build this, I want to validate I'm not solving a problem only we had.
Does a clear solution / product already exist in the market.

DEV Community: SayoojGN