Finding skilled Drupal talent is hard — so why not build it yourself?
This session shares the structured 45-day plan we used to successfully onboard and mentor a batch of interns into confident junior Drupal developers, blending hands-on projects with best practice learning.

Prerequisite
Managers, tech leads, or anyone mentoring juniors
Basic knowledge of Drupal concepts

Outline
I. Why Structured Onboarding Matters
Challenges with self-learning in Drupal
Building confidence early with structure
II. The 45-Day Plan
Week 1–2: Drupal basics and site-building
Week 3–4: Custom module, theming, simple projects
Week 5–6: Real client tasks and project simulations
III. Templates and Frameworks
Daily task sheets
Progress tracking methods
Code review and feedback practices
IV. Key Mistakes to Avoid
Overloading theory early
Underestimating real-world Drupal debugging skills
V. Success Metrics
What worked, what we improved

Learning Objectives
Create a replicable onboarding plan for new Drupal talent
Learn how to structure tasks to gradually build developer confidence
Discover common pitfalls in early Drupal learning
Build a nurturing yet performance-focused intern program

Experience level
Intermediate