More and more companies in Romania are investing in mentoring programs for students and young workers, aimed at supplementing practical skills and preparing them for their future careers.

A well-organized mentoring program brings many benefits to all parties involved:

• This accelerates the process of professional development of juniors
• Contributes to improving the quality of management in companies
• Promote open communication and feedback
• This affects the attraction of talent
• It helps to strengthen teams and create a pleasant work environment for employees
• This is a competitive advantage for the company

To highlight the benefits of the mentoring program as seen by students, I spoke with Naina, a software engineer at Keysight Technologies Romania.

I know you started your career after an internship program at Keysight Technologies Romania. What exactly prompted you to go to such a program and what are the selection criteria?

On the one hand, the faculty encouraged me to do an internship – after the 3rd year, a mandatory summer internship. On the other hand, it was that I also wanted to deepen the knowledge gained in college, as well as learn new things. I was also aware of the long-standing partnership between Keysight Technologies and the Polytechnic University, and was drawn to the fact that many of the staff are alumni; practically I felt closer to this environment. Last but not least, the technologies they use are also technologies that attracted me in college and that I want to delve into: Docker/Kubernetes deployments, Network Concepts Virtualization (NFV), traffic generation from the kernel, and DPDK, VMware virtualization (ESXi, vCenter), OpenStack private cloud administration.

What did you gain from the internship and how did it prepare you for your professional career?

First, there is a big difference between the theory you learn in college and how to apply those concepts in a project. Then, apart from the technical information I gained from actually working in the field, the internship also gave me confidence. While I think I still have a lot to learn, after completing two internships at Keysight Technologies before I was hired, I realize that I wasn’t starting from scratch. The fact that I already knew my colleagues during the internship also helped me, and the transition was easier.

When did you start working with a mentor and what was the first impact?

Since day one at Keysight. It helped me to understand how to apply the concepts learned in college and what the principles of developing a project in a company compared to a project in college.

How, in your opinion, does a mentor influence the professional path of a software engineer?

As a student, you may not even be aware of many things you don’t know, and a mentor can steer you in one direction or another depending on what you want to learn or where you want to go.

What should a software engineer do to maximize the mentor relationship? What should they do and what should they not do?

As in any relationship, both parties must be actively involved. This means that you should not expect all information to come from the mentor; You should also ask questions or come up with new ideas. Also, self-study is important – during my first internship, I had plenty of time to familiarize myself with the technology before I actually started working on the assigned project. And in general, internships at Keysight are more focused on getting the theoretical part than doing the practical part.

How do you choose a mentor? What advice would you give to engineers starting out on their journey?

In my case, I was assigned a mentor during my internship. An alternative can be community involvement – ​​especially for girls, there are communities that encourage and support STEM career choices. Or you can simply write to the person who inspired you to become a programmer; you’ll never know.

The article was developed by Keysight Technologies