The Story Behind The Mentorship Programme
What started as a side project with just a handful of Google Forms has since grown into a vibrant mentorship community, which helped people grow, land new roles, and build meaningful connections along the way.
Mentorship has always held a special place in my heart, but this program, in particular, stands out as one of my all-time favorites. Today, I want to take a step back and reflect on how this mentorship programme project started.
When I first joined as a volunteer four years ago, I had no clue how much this experience would shape my own journey. I still remember joining one of the first intro sessions, and something just clicked. It wasn’t just about sharing knowledge, it was about watching people come together around shared goals, exchanging ideas, and realizing this program could change careers.
Since then, it’s been amazing to watch the program grow into something much bigger, a space where mentors and mentees come together to learn from each other, support one another, and grow both professionally and personally.
Even before I joined the program, the idea of mentorship was already close to my heart. I’d been lucky to cross paths with some amazing people who supported me, shared their knowledge, and helped me grow along the way. I’ve always valued this kind of collaborative environment, which is built on communication, sharing, and continuous learning. It resonates deeply with me and continues to motivate my involvement.
Back then, we were just three or four people. I still remember Irina Kamalova and Mary Gudman coordinating the first cycles. We had no website, no structure, just a few Google Forms and a big vision. One of the first things she asked me to do was to build a Python script to match mentors and mentees based on their preferences, skills, and career goals.
Before that, the process was messy and completely manual, but the script made a real difference. More importantly, it showed us how tech could directly support and scale community-building. Not long after that, I stepped into a coordinator role and ended up running the program for about the next three years.
We’ve been building everything from scratch: managing timelines, creating resources like booklets and Notion templates, organizing events, planning ice-breakers, maintaining conversations in the Slack channels. It wasn’t always easy, and there were plenty of challenges along the way. But what kept us going was the belief that we were building something meaningful, a space where people could grow through connection. We really felt like a team, all working toward the same goal.
The Mentorship Program also inspired another powerful initiative: building a real project where everyone could get hands-on experience and contribute collaboratively. That’s how our mentorship website and later community website, hosted on GitHub Pages, came to life.
The idea originally came from Adriana (she wrote to me in Slack), and I still remember those early days brainstorming with her, sketching out designs, building the platform from the ground up, and inviting others to join and contribute.
We still actively maintain it, raise issues, and encourage participation. Everyone involved can showcase this experience on their CV. It’s also an opportunity for leaders and senior engineers to review code and mentor contributors, exactly the kind of collaborative, growth-focused environment we had dreamed of from the start.
As the program expanded, we realized the importance of having clear, centralized documentation. So we’ve built a detailed Notion workspace to serve as our internal guide. What started as a few simple pages gradually evolved into a comprehensive hub covering every aspect of the mentorship cycle. We documented organizational workflows, program timelines, mentor-mentee checklists, and step-by-step guides for planning events and running engaging ice-breakers. We included templates for Slack messages, email updates. Over time, this living documentation became one of our most valuable tools for the team to contribute and lead with confidence.
After three years coordinating and volunteering and now being part of the Mentorship cohort, I’m honestly amazed at how much this program has grown. What started as a handful of us working out of Google Forms has become a full ecosystem: a website we built together, clear timelines, a passionate volunteer team, and three mentorship models that fit different needs: ad-hoc sessions, long-term guidance, and study groups.
Seeing us grow from 22 mentor-mentee pairs to 55 active ones over these years reminds me why I stayed: when people come together willing to listen, share, and support, something truly special happens.
One thing this journey has taught me is that mentorship goes far beyond exchanging skills or advice. It’s about creating trust, understanding struggles, and hope when things get tough.
Remember: every conversation, every connection, has the power to change someone’s path often in ways you might never expect, including your own.