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Mentoring

At DVELP, we believe in how we do things. Although the end result is ultimately what we strive for, the steps we take to get there are extremely important.

The belief in our process and a continued desire to improve it helps us to be more consistent as a team and more efficient in the day-to-day. It allows us to spend more time above the value line.

As part of our commitment to this belief, we operate a mentor scheme to help new team members get up to speed.

What is expected of a mentor?

As a mentor to any new recruit, your overarching aim is to share the knowledge you have, but importantly listen to new experiences and see how we can improve collectively.

The following will help guide you:

  • Spend time pair programming to work through your current project or task and share domain knowledge

  • Discuss the fundamentals such as Git (FF merges), linting and project setup. The Cookbook is a great place to start

  • Explain how to efficiently manage time to create a sustainable but productive working practice

  • Walk through the quirks of our remote-first culture, the fascination with afk and the importance of fluid conversation regular updates

  • Post a picture of some kittens to the #random channel

  • Explain why we obsess around the details and how the small things, like consistent naming conventions of environments help prevent catastrophe

  • Offer reassurance on taking ownership for delivering code that works and how to ship it to production with confidence

  • Review pull requests and offer constructive advice on how to improve code where possible

  • Introduce existing team members and share any key information about the day-to-day running of the project you're working on

What can you expect as a mentee?

As a newcomer to the team, you should at a minimum, expect the following from your assigned mentor and the wider team:

  • A warm welcome, followed by a one-on-one video call with all existing team members

  • An on-boarding session from your mentor to help you understand the ins-and-outs of how we do things, from development best practices (FF commits) to time tracking and booking holidays

  • Support and advice writing your first few features and shipping to production

  • A point of contact for any question, no matter how large or small

  • Help setting up all the relevant accounts (GitHub, Harvest, Charlie, Google apps etc.)

  • An introduction to the project and team that you will be working with

Make Questions Multiple Choice

Asking questions is a fundamental part to learning. We have a nifty trick to get to your answer more quickly: make the question multiple choice.

By sending proposals along with your question, you will help the recipient to:

  • Get up-to-speed with the context
  • Show you have done research and are really stuck
  • Allow them to choose, augment or add to the proposed solutions

A 'warm-up' question of 'hey, I'm working on this problem, have we solved it before?' is always good place to start.

So remember, make sure the next time you ask a question, send some proposals too.

How long should the mentorship last?

The mentorship is aimed to help people become confident members of the team. The time required will change on a case-by-case basis, but we recommend that mentors give close support for at least the first 4 weeks.