As a today's software engineer, I came along as a yesterday’s intern like most people did in the industry. Meanwhile, as someone comes from a different background, I had a more practical angle though: despite the tasks I had from my buddy, I tried to use the company hour to build my personal projects. It worked out pretty well in a way — with a more focused environment and a daily routine, I got to work out my personal portfolio and got a job after. It was an unpaid internship, so I didn’t feel bad about doing that. Plus, I wasn’t needed that much as well.
It is a harsh industry for newcomers — companies always want to hire experienced folks, while a newcomer needs to be hired to have that experience. It’s an infinite loop.
Currently, I work in a (I call it) hipster company Pleo. The reason why I call it hipster is because of all the pioneering stuff it tries to adopt: remote working scheme, humane touch on people management, a great amount of transparency and trust, etc. However, all being said, we don’t have any interns atm. It really puzzled me for some time as we have 20+ mid to senior engineers.
Meanwhile, I’m also part of a Not-For-Profit, HackYourFuture, which teaches web development to refugees/asylum seekers/underrepresented groups so they can adapt to a new job market. We regularly deliver program graduates and they all urge to find internships/jobs. But because of the infinite loop, the two ends do not meet well.
Do people really need you then, software intern?
To understand it, I conducted a survey to know people’s opinions. I made this ->google form<- to collect some data. So far I got 15(subject to change as more responses are collected) responses — it’s still a pretty small data set, so my assumptions here can be very inaccurate. If you want to help improve the result, fill in this ->google form<-.
Warning…
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Comic sans incoming…
The willingness of people
Out of all responses, 53% of people have a good amount of mentoring experience, 40% of people are new to mentoring, and less than 10% never mentored. Despite 90% of those people said ‘yes’ to ‘if they want to mentor someone in work’, 10% said ‘maybe’, among which 50% are experienced mentors and 50% are new. (and these are solely from my team). In other words, ~12% of experienced mentors have a second thought while 16% of new mentors are hesitant.
Putting aside the people who filled the form are likely those who have a high willingness to mentor, I still say the willingness is on the hype. The majority of experienced mentors are willing to stay in it as well as the majority of new mentors are willing to keep doing it.
The motivation of people
In the question of ‘what to pass on to the mentee’,
- everyone thinks ‘general technical experience’ is worth passing;
- slightly more than 50% thinks ‘specific domain knowledge’ is important, and it’s consists of 90% of experienced mentors and 10% of people who never mentored. Among all, 90% experienced mentors and 100% of people who never mentored* selected this option.
- more than 30% want to share their ‘life stories’, which consists of 60% of experienced mentors and 20% respectively new mentors and people who never mentored. Among all, 37.5% of experienced mentors, 16% respectively from new mentors and people who never mentored* selected this option;
- ~13% of people chose ‘I just want to guide someone no matter what’, which consists of 50% of experienced mentors and 50% of new mentors. Among all, 12.5% of experienced mentors and 16.6% of new mentors selected this option.
- also, small friction added a new option of ‘nontechnical personal work experience’.
To answer ‘the benefit of mentoring others’,
- almost 90% of all respondents think ‘it challenges and strengthens my own knowledge’, which consists of 53.8% of experienced mentors, 38.5% of new mentors and 7.7% of people who never mentored*. Among all, 87.5% of all experienced mentors, 83% of all new mentors and 100% from people who never mentored* selected this option;
- 80% of all thinks ‘brings a new perspective and therefore can learn from them’, which consists of 58.3% of experienced mentors, 33.3% of new mentors and 9.4% of people who never mentored*. Among all, 75% of experienced mentors, ~66% of all new mentors and 100% of people who never mentored* selected this option;
- slightly more than 70% of all thinks ‘achievement and pride’ which consists of 41.6% experienced mentors, 50% of new mentors and 9.4% of people who never mentored*. Among all, 62.5% of all experienced mentors, 100% of all new mentors and 100% from people who never mentored* selected this option;
- also, small friction added new options of ‘fun to see people grow’ and ‘good for the company’
Improving the intern’s technical expertise is clearly the main objective. The interesting aspect is probably that for experienced mentors, domain knowledge is almost equally important whereas for new mentors not as such. Experienced mentors also tend to want a ‘junior buddy’ so they can have casual interactions. Almost everyone agrees that interns can help them improve one way or another. New mentors would be more driven to mentor others because of the achievement mentoring gives.
What can be the dealbreaker
In terms of issues they see in mentoring interns,
- 53% of all respondents think ‘it takes away time and energy’ which consists of 62.5% experienced mentors and 37.5% of new mentors. Among all, 62.5% of experienced mentors and 50% of new mentors selected this option;
- 40% of all think ‘it distracts them from their sprint goal’ which consists of 65% of experienced mentors and 35% of new mentors. Among all, 50% of experienced mentors and 33.3% of new mentors selected this option;
- No one selected ‘it’s boring’ or ‘it does not benefit my career’;
- also, new answers of ‘finding the right balance to let interns do useful and challenging but realistic’ and ‘my company does not hire juniors’ are added
It shows that experienced mentors in the company tend to be more intimidated by the negative influence on their own work whereas fewer new mentors seem to have the same concern. People are also more concerned about their general time and energy investing rather than distractions. People also mentioned more practical challenges they face — what tasks to be assigned to interns, and of course the common voice of ‘no interns in my company’.
Bonus: what can be assigned to interns
People say:
- scoped and less impacted tasks that the team is working on
- code reviews
- refactoring some legacy code
- pair programming for developing features
- tasks that are easier to debug (simpler?)
- writing the test and helping test
Although the data set is still very small, I can see roughly a pattern. In general, people are willing to help those who are more junior, no matter how much experience they have. Passing on of domain-specific knowledge is somewhat underestimated by newer mentors but valued by more experienced ones. The majority thinks having interns/junior actually help them grow one way or another: more experienced developers look for the fresh eyes whereas less experienced developers are drawn to the achievement it derives.
What does this all mean for companies? In my humble opinion, it could be:
- firstly, start hiring! Your people like it!
- assign the newly hired to people with less mentoring experience, it can be a boost to their motivation
- pair more experienced mentors with less experienced mentors so they can mentor them how to mentor, e.g. maybe they need a refreshment of domain knowledge
- not sure how to arrange interns? maybe start letting them write some tests, it’s easy to scope
- encourage interns to speak out what they find unsensible, what they think of the existing way of doing stuff, what can be improved, etc. After all, that could be the most invaluable part a fresh eye can bring in — in other words, the inclusion of such fresh blood is an important occasion for the company to spot out their onboarding flaws, the documentation ambiguity etc
If you find this interesting, you can also help with:
- fill this ->google form<- to improve the data
- talk with your company about hiring interns
Welcome all kinds of feedback! I’d like to hear from you, too. Contact me at:
Twitter: @zoeyzou0117
* The data set of people who never mentored is way too small, I would doubt it :P
