Two Sides of the Desk: An Intern-Mentor Journey ft. Prajwal and Minal at Mercari India
Aug 06, 2024
Welcome to Two Sides of the Desk, a blog series where we share the unique experiences, challenges, and triumphs of interns and their mentors. This blog explores the dynamic relationship between mentor and mentee, offering insights from both sides of the desk. Whether you’re a seasoned mentor, a budding intern, or simply curious about the mentorship journey, our stories and reflections aim to inspire, educate, and foster a deeper understanding of this transformative partnership.
Mercari India: How do you approach balancing guidance and autonomy for your interns to ensure they’re both learning and contributing meaningfully to projects?
Prajwal: Balancing guidance and autonomy involves setting a solid foundation with clear expectations, equipping interns with the right set of tools and resources, providing structured support, and gradually increasing autonomy as interns grow more confident and capable. Regular communication and feedback are key to ensuring they are both learning and contributing meaningfully to projects.
Mercari India: Can you provide an example of a particularly challenging situation you’ve encountered while mentoring an intern, and how you navigated it to ensure their growth and success?
Prajwal: Introducing the codebase was challenging given its size, structure, and complexity. To avoid overwhelming the intern with technical jargon, I decided to present an eagle’s eye view of the codebase instead of navigating file by file. I sliced the codebase into blocks of predefined functionalities. To reinforce her understanding, I recommended she explore a recently built feature that was a fresh implementation and less entangled with the rest of the codebase. This approach set her perspective on the outline of the end-to-end logical structure of a given screen. This atomic exploration enabled her to understand the composition of the rest of the app by inference and led her to successfully complete her first business KR with minimal supervision.
Mercari India: If you could swap roles with each other for a day, what’s one thing you think you’d learn or experience from each other’s perspectives?
Prajwal: If we could swap roles for a day, we would both gain valuable insights from each other’s perspectives. I would love to experience the sense of awe in everything I do at work, which is often lost as we become seasoned professionals.
Mercari India: What specific skills or knowledge did you gain from this internship, and how did you leverage your mentor’s expertise to achieve your learning goals?
Minal: During this internship, I acquired many important skills and knowledge crucial for anyone new to the corporate world. These skills have significantly contributed to my growth in this career. Here are some key areas in which I have developed:
- Before this internship, I had no background in Android development. However, I had the opportunity to explore and learn the fundamentals of Android, Kotlin as a tech stack, Gradle, builds, and crucial development techniques.
- The internship improved my ability to write clean and maintainable code. I also gained knowledge about collaborative code contribution, an essential skill for a software engineer. Additionally, I contributed to a live project.
- My problem-solving skills were enhanced through this internship. I learned how to debug code, handle bugs and issues, and navigate the codebase efficiently.
I leveraged my mentor’s expertise in multiple impactful ways:
- Mentor-Mentee Meetings: One-on-one meetings with my mentor were incredibly helpful. These sessions provided guidance, constructive feedback, discussions on challenges, a proper learning roadmap, and much more.
- Android Development Onboarding Path: My mentor provided a step-by-step roadmap for learning and exploring Android development, which greatly accelerated my learning curve as a fresher in this new domain.
- Hands-On Project: After mastering the fundamentals and advanced concepts, my mentor assigned me a hands-on Android application project. This project allowed me to apply and consolidate my learning, providing practical experience and enhancing my skills.
- Guidance and Support: Throughout this period, I received excellent support and guidance from my mentor, whether it was task-specific assistance or advice on professional growth.
- Enhancing Problem-Solving Techniques: I learned a lot about problem-solving from my mentor. He taught me effective debugging, troubleshooting, navigating the codebase, and how to write maintainable code.
Mercari India: Can you describe a time when you encountered a problem or obstacle during a project, and how you collaborated with your mentor to overcome it?
Minal: Challenges I Faced – Initially, I struggled to grasp the project requirements, scope, and desired outcomes. Understanding the code flow and prior implementation by other developers was also challenging. Writing code logic for the feature while ensuring it was maintainable and clean was difficult. I faced several issues and errors during the debugging process. During the onboarding and early stages of the project, I encountered many new terms related to Android development, which made it challenging to understand.
Collaboration with Mentor to Overcome the Challenges– My mentor played a crucial role in overcoming these challenges. He answered all my questions and clarified any doubts about the project scope and requirements. He taught me how to navigate the code and understand its functionality. I appreciated that he was always ready to help, whether the questions were task-specific or general.
By providing practical examples and in-depth explanations, my mentor helped me gain a better understanding of the concepts. This collaboration sharpened my problem-solving skills, boosted my confidence, and improved my debugging and code implementation abilities. I also learned that before jumping into the implementation of a feature, it is important to have a better understanding of the project requirements and the impact on the product and end users. It also fostered a continuous learning mindset and enhanced my overall development skills.
Mercari India: If you could swap roles with each other for a day, what’s one thing you think you’d learn or experience from each other’s perspectives?
Minal: If we could swap roles for a day, we would both gain valuable insights from each other’s perspectives. From my mentor’s perspective, I would learn deeply about understanding code functionality, thinking critically about edge cases, and practicing robust unit testing to ensure high-quality solutions. I would also like to learn debugging skills to analyze end-to-end logic implementation and develop a strong willingness to learn from peers. Additionally, efficient collaboration skills and a keen eagerness to understand how things work would be enlightening. Moreover, continuous guidance and mentoring to accelerate learning and success, along with constructive feedback, greatly enrich performance and foster a positive learning attitude.
Mentorship plays a crucial role in professional development and career perspectives for both mentors and mentees. Effective collaboration enhances these aspects significantly.
If our stories resonate with you and you are inspired to be part of an organization that values growth, learning, and collaboration, we encourage you to join us. Stay tuned for more stories, lessons, and reflections as we continue to learn and grow together. Your support and engagement are greatly appreciated, and we look forward to welcoming you into our community and sharing more with you in the future.
