Why did you decide to become a mentor?
At some point in my career I realized I had a good volume of experience and perspectives to share. I started with mentoring on technical topics - programming languages, frameworks, concepts.
Over time, I stepped more into engineering leadership. My focus on bringing impact made me learn that beyond technical challenges that I was solving, I had to master leading and working efficiently as a team. Having gone this learning path, with bumps and challenges, of course, I realized it is not as well defined and straightforward as learning technology could be. That’s when my mentorship started to shift — from purely technical coaching to guiding people through the more ambiguous and challenging parts of engineering career. Now, combined with the technical expertise, I started sharing this form of experience with my mentees.
How did you get your career start?
I could say I’ve been starting many times - meaning the start of new when switching whole different roles (software engineer, engineering manager, entrepreneur), types (contracting, early-stage, mid-stage startups, big tech) and sizes of companies and even locations (I moved to U.S. 9 years ago). What I definitely can say is that having support, be it a mentor, your manager, colleague, makes a whole difference.
One of the persons I am most grateful for was my manager mentoring and supporting me on my path to transition and promotion to Staff Engineer. Having been in that role before herself, she coached me to think, act, perform and lead at the new level firsthand and then a strongly supported promotion came. This is the approach I also follow with my mentees - focus primarily on improving yourself so that recognition follows.
What do mentees usually come to you for?
I mentor and help other people on career growth (Software Engineer to Senior to Staff), soft skills, developing skills and mental models helpful to or required at the next level they are targeting.
My goal is to help engineers break through plateaus by either developing new skills or adopting a different way of thinking.
I always work with mentees on solving real life situations, I strive to give feedback that is actionable and tailored to specific situation the mentee is in. I believe this is what mentors are for - internet is full of articles, books, posts and slides on how to be productive, efficient, be a better engineer and all that but they are general and need effort to be applied to specific situation.
My approach to mentorship is “You own your destiny, I support you”. I follow and believe mentorship relationships thrive from basing on these principles:
- mentee owns the process, so come prepared and drive it your way - I'm there to help but I'm not there to push you into some specific direction;
- mentor facilitates mentee's thinking by sharing experience and expertise and asking questions;
- mentor creates safe space for mentee to experiment, nudging to try new approaches;
- mentor makes feedback actionable - we're going to have weekly tasks and action items.
What's been your favourite mentorship success story so far?
One of my mentees is on track to a next level (Staff). While there’s still work on that front to be continued and completed all the way up to getting official promotion, I call it success seeing my mentee already having adopted new mental models (thinking cross-functionally at the org level, focusing on business impact, objectives and metrics), approaches, getting more visibility, trust and credit from leadership.
Hearing him say that their org leader told him, “Wow, you seem to think differently now!” — and recognized his broader vision, strategic thinking, and increased ownership — was the most rewarding moment.
What are you getting out of being a mentor?
Seeing the impact of my help to others is a reward in itself for me. That’s why I decided to mentor.
Personally, by mentoring I feel I'm contributing to the world and being utilized to my best.
Beyond that, mentoring helps me in a sense that by speaking and writing out my mental models, feedback and recommendations helps myself structure, internalize further and reflect on them.
Mentoring helps me getting better at expressing thoughts, writing, speaking and generally becoming a better leader.
And then by being able to deliver thoughts and intents clearly to others - one can bring impact at a much greater scale.