New hire and haven't did anything other then look at the code base. How long did it take until you actually start contributing code at your first job?

Just until the SE for my project there was done. Just because SE is awesome!

First change: 1 day
First non-breaking change: 2 days
Doing what you were actually supposed to do: 1 week
Stopping ranting about the code: 3 years (I quit)

My very first job, they had me look at the codebase for a good few days before I did any changes.

My first 'real' job, it took 2 days, and that's only because of the long induction process.

Pfff my first real contribution to a massive project happened after 2-3 months of debugging and bug fixing. Then again there were around 100 people working on the code.

Depends entirely on the company, the culture, and the codebase. As a contractor I'm expected to contribute exceptionally quickly, but simply demanding results doesn't guarantee them. Don't be afraid of asking questions though. There's almost always weirdness in every codebase (I've yet to see an exception to this rule) and it's fine to ask what's going on.

For example where I am now, they use an auto_prepend file in PHP, which loads a file before *anything* else and is defined at the vhost level. Imagine trying to work out why the index file wasn't the first one loaded! Feeling a bit 'lost' in the code is perfectly normal; you'll be fine.

First job - 2 months, once the various training courses finished.
Second job - 3 days.
Current job - first day.

For my next job, I guess I'll have contributed before I even start!

Usually when they have an easy enough ticket to make sure you won't break anything. Then confidence starts to build up.

1 week in the first job. Happened because of eavesdropping on the dev manager and the dev discussion, in which they were just guessing how the code works. Gave my inputs which led the dev manager to assign that task to me. Rest of my the new recruits had to go for a month of training making presentations.

Current job: 2 days.
Previous job? Day one.