The first three months are the only period in which you can ask obvious questions without cost, see the organisation clearly, and establish how you will work before habits set.
Most people spend it trying to look competent, which wastes all three.
For a practical reference on remote companies, Monitask provides this page.
The advantage that expires
You can ask anything. "Why is it done this way?" is a legitimate question from a new person and a challenge from an established one. The licence lasts about eight weeks.
You can see what nobody else can. Every organisation has practices that are obviously strange to an outsider and invisible to everyone inside. You lose this ability in about a month, permanently.
Write down what strikes you as odd, in week one. You will not believe it in month six, and it is the most valuable thing you will produce all year.
Expectations are not yet set. How you respond to messages at 10pm in week two becomes what people expect in year two.
The first two weeks
Meet people, deliberately. Not just your team — the people your team depends on and who depend on your team. Ask each of them: what does your team need from mine, and what usually goes wrong.
Ask what the last person in this role found hardest. The single most informative question available and rarely asked.
Find out who actually decides things, which will not match the org chart. See decision rights.
Find out who people actually go to when something breaks. Also not the org chart. See roles versus people.
Read the last six months of decisions, if any record exists. If none does, that is itself a finding.
Do something small and real. Contributing in the first fortnight changes how you feel about the job and how people relate to you, more than any amount of orientation.
Weeks three to eight
Agree what success looks like at six months, in writing. With your manager, specifically. Most people never do this, and then discover at the review that they were being measured on something else.
Ask for correction early and explicitly. "What would you have done differently?" gets a real answer while you are new and it is still expected.
Take on something slightly beyond you, with someone available when it goes wrong. This is what development consists of and it is easiest to arrange now. See how learning at work actually happens.
Do not fix things yet. You will see obvious problems. Some are obvious and unfixed because they are harder than they look, or because a previous attempt failed for a reason nobody mentions. Note them; act in month three.
Set your working pattern deliberately. Hours, availability, how you handle interruptions. What you do now is what you will be doing in two years.
Weeks nine to twelve
Review your week-one notes. The things that struck you as strange — which were real problems, which had reasons, which have you already stopped noticing? This exercise is genuinely useful and almost nobody does it.
Pick one thing to change. By now you have the context to know whether it is worth changing and the standing to attempt it. One, done properly, is worth more than five raised as observations.
Ask for feedback formally. Not "how am I doing" but "what should I be doing differently in the next three months?"
Check the assumptions you joined on. The role as described and the role as it is are rarely identical. If the gap is large, this is the moment to discuss it, while it is still framed as calibration rather than as a complaint.
If it is not working
Sometimes by month three it is clear the role is not what was described, or the manager is not someone you can work with.
Say something before month six. Problems raised early are calibration; the same problem raised at nine months is a performance conversation.
Distinguish the role from the settling-in. Months one to three feel disorienting even in a good job. That sensation is not evidence.
Distinguish the role from the manager. A good role with a bad manager is sometimes fixable by moving internally, and the manager is more determinative of your experience than the company. See internal mobility.
Leaving early is survivable. A short tenure explained straightforwardly — "the role turned out to be materially different from what was described" — is a normal thing that happens and is far better than three unhappy years. It is expensive to do twice.
The one thing worth doing
In week one, write down everything that seems strange, and put a reminder in your calendar for week twelve.
Five minutes, and it is the only version of your organisation's outside view you will ever have.
For broader public guidance and background, consult the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.