What was your approach to the mentorship relationship and how did you ensure its success?

Question

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Situation: I have taken up mentorship role for Senior Engineer L6 in my team who
I elevated to SDM L6 - in my team at Elastic Container Services at AWS

Task and Actions : I followed a standard process of advising individuals to take
SDM trainings, but beyond the trainings I focussed on real hands on training.
Since the SDE was in my team, I requested him to take up a leadership role on
the following dimensions gradually

1/ Process: I asked him to lead the team's Sprint and Grooming sessions. After
these sessions, I provided him feedback on how he could improve team management.
My focus was on exolaining him how he could leverage mechanisms to increase the
productivity

2/ Leadership: I participated in sessions where he provided feedback to his team
members, helping him to understand the best way to deliver both positive and
challenging feedback in a positive frame

3/ Delivery: I requested him to own project management and status template for
one of the projects - clarifying what details the leadership looks for in status
reports

4/ Organizational leadership: I also requested him to work on cross org
initiatives to sharpen his abilities to lead without influence across teams -
specifically ALB and ECS

Result: The individual now leads a team of 12 engineers and a core service in
ECS successfully for last 12 months

Anonymous · Answer

My approach is to build trust first, align on their goals, give them stretch
opportunities with coaching, and celebrate their progress.

For example, one mid-level engineer wanted to grow into a tech lead. We mapped
the skills gap, I gave them a small cross-team feature to lead, and provided
weekly feedback on planning, design, and stakeholder comms. Within six months
they were operating as a tech lead and were promoted.

I see mentorship as empowering someone to succeed without needing me — creating
future leaders, not followers.

Anonymous · Answer

Mentoring the team is one of the essential responsibilities of a Manager. Given
the fact that my time is extremely divided with other responsbilities such as
engaging stakeholders, running into back to back meetings during the day to meet
project timelines, I always make sure to set aside a time in my day and be
available for my team to discuss any mutual concerns. It is extremely important
to assure the team that they have my support. Typically I have weekly 1-on-1s
with my manager reportees and bi-weekly 1-on-1s with individual contributors to
share feedback and provide resources for any help required. In addition, for any
adhoc discussions, I make myself available towards the end of the day in case my
day is fully booked.

Anonymous · Answer

During new project onboarding I noticed lot of performance  differences across
team members, through the regular scrum meetings I watched the overall progress
and identified team members rearing help. once identified I setup mentor session
with them one on one and guide them with the technology and getting up to speed
with the project. Many times I spent extra time to learn in depth and give
detailed know how and practice to those team memebers

What was your approach to the mentorship relationship and how did you ensure its success?

Practice this question with AI

Go Premium

Community Answers

Unlock Full Access

Unlock Full Access

Unlock Full Access

Unlock Full Access

Practice More Questions