we obviously agree but one of the problems i had with onboarding as a key proposition is that onboarding "seems" like a onetime problem. i lacked the datapoints or anecdotes to convincingly pitch "onboarding = context switching", a more recurring problem as the size of your team and size of your codebase and size of your tenure grows, even if its technically the same codebase, you're "always" onboarding to wahtever it is you're working on or maintaining or putting out fires.

Depends on how big the codebase is and how many people work on it and how often you need to switch to an unfamiliar context, but yes agreed, it's context switching, and is a regular thing. It is part of the job of software engineering, learning piles of code you were previously unfamiliar with.