Host - Pat Sweet: Hey everyone, pat sweet here. If you're like most of the folks who listen to this show, you're an engineering leader who is busy and probably not just a little busy, but extremely busy, like working overtime on a regular basis, hardly getting enough sleep, not getting the exercise you want. Work is just nuts. So if this describes you, you're in very good company and it's for that reason that I've put together a free guide, which I've what I think is very cleverly called finding the sixth day. And engineer's quick guide to making more time now. And it answers that call. It provides five practical, actionable steps that you can take very quickly to create that sixth day that you wish you actually had the run of a workweek. And here's the best part. You don't actually have to work the weekend to find that six day, that time is sitting there available for you to do important work, to do good work. And with this guide, my hope is that I can help you find that quickly. So again, that's finding the six day an engineer's quick guide to making more time. Now it's absolutely free and you can download it today@engineeringandleadership.com slash sixth day that's engineering and leadership.com/six T H day. This is the engineering and leadership podcast with pat sweet episode 38. [inaudible]

Host - Pat Sweet: Welcome to the engineering and leadership podcast. The show dedicated to helping engineers thrive today. I speak with an M SAF software engineer and engineering mentor, extraordinary about the importance of mentorship and how it can transform careers.

Host - Pat Sweet: Hey everybody. And welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here with me. If this is the first time you listened to the engineering leadership podcast. Welcome. I'm very excited to have you here. And for those of you who've been around for a while. Welcome back. It's, it's been phenomenal to get to know folks who are out there listening of there in the audience growing along with me through this journey and, and quite a journey. It has been a resurrected the podcast about a year ago after having it go quiet for a couple of years. And it's been great. It's been just fantastic, an awful lot of fun. So certainly a lot of work, but a lot of fun. And we just hit another big milestone. We hit 80,000 downloads, which is super w well on our way to our first a hundred thousand. So very exciting milestone to share with you. So if you've been part of that, while you have been part of that, because you're here right now, so thank you. Thank you very much. Well enough for that, let's let's jump right into today's main content. [inaudible]

Host - Pat Sweet: Mentorship in the world of engineering is an incredible tool. It helps those being mentored, improve job performance, satisfaction, and achievement of long-term goals for the mentor. It helps connect with earlier stage professionals to organize their thoughts and frameworks, that just their way of thinking about their work. And it gives them a chance to give back to the profession that has helped develop them, finding or becoming an engineering mentor is a brilliant move at any point in your engineering career. In today's episode, I interview [inaudible] engineering, mentor and software engineer about coaching and mentorship within the profession. Ann Ann is an engineering leader for public safety software company. And over the last decade, he's progressed from starting as an aspiring engineer, all the way to becoming a leader within his company, and is also a startup advisor, volunteer board member and an established technology mentor and coach outside of his day job. Here's my interview with NAND, Mr. Nan Saffy. Thank you so very much for joining me tonight on the engineering and leadership podcast. How are you today?

Guest - Anand Safi: I'm doing good. Great, Patrick, thank you for having me today. Excited to chat.

Host - Pat Sweet: Yeah, you and I, both you and I both, I think this is a topic that you and I are both very passionate about. We're going to be talking about mentorship and coaching and, and how important those things are in, in, in all careers, frankly, at, at all levels. We were just chatting about that a little bit offline, but before we get into that I'd like it, if you could paint us a picture a little bit, tell us about your career and, and what brought you to embrace both coaching and mentorship.

Guest - Anand Safi: Yeah, so I did get my bachelor's and master's in computer science and then I spent the last decade or so in various roles within the software engineering technology space. So I started as a aesthet at, E-bay moved to frontend development, full-stack development senior engineer tech lead, and then over the past two to three years, it's just being more engineering leadership and, and being a people manager on leading teams and initiatives. The fact that I was able to go through this transition is not because I have super powers or I I'm just a, really a one off that 10 X engineer are talented. It's the right amount of talent, plus the right amount of guidance and direction. Actually it has come in many forms and just from, from many wonderful people who might directly or not directly kind of where that coaching or mentor hat might not have that formal title, but that has been kind of a huge portion of kind of how high I have progressed in my own career journey. And the, the best way to celebrate that is to empower and enable the next set of talent or just the kind of folks that are currently in, in their early either individual contributor phase, or early engineering leadership phase. And that is how I decided to just stood up the whole, pay it forward notion along with taking upon mentorship and coaching in my spare time, along with my core role as a engineering manager.

Host - Pat Sweet: Right. So it sounds like you were inspired a bit by your own experience by your own transition from individual contributor into leadership roles. It sounds like you got, you got that helping hand from those who have gone before you,

Guest - Anand Safi: Correct. I think just it's being only, probably the last three to five years where we have seen a lot of mentorship platforms or digital ways to offer a mentorship think of this, like a decade back when everything is in-office or just, there's no kind of spending so much time just talking to somebody on, on word shield calls and everything. The only form of mentorship was through one-on-ones or just trying to seek someone from help, or just trying to reach out to somebody who was in the industry for expertise actually. So that is how kind of, for me, it was not coming across a mentorship platform or just searching that I need mentorship. It is things that I experienced in terms of support or validation, or just kind of a direction, as I said, now that I can connect the dots like, yeah, that was actually mentorship or that it was a coaching session that I got in that sense. And now I'm trying to leverage our wonderful innovation that has happened to this kind of specific field through the tools and technology have a label to, to reach even more people across the globe actually.

Host - Pat Sweet: And this is something that I'm really excited to to ask you about is, is these these platforms, because I think you have of all of the engineers that I've interacted with and interviewed have made full use of some of these, some of these platforms that exist. But before we get to that, I wanted to maybe have a step back a little bit and, and define some terms here in your own words, what, what are mentorship and coaching and how are they different from one another?

Guest - Anand Safi: Yeah, it's, it's basically working with someone just kind of underlying to him but what you're working towards can greatly differ actually. So what coaching would mean is basically somebody is trying to do their best in their current role. And it's more centered around performance in your current role actually. And there are goals that, that you can kind of achieve in terms of your day-to-day performance for our current role. So coaching is a little bit more guidance and direction in terms of what you should be doing. While mentorship is probably there is a career development aspect tied to it in terms of either somebody wants to the kind of mentees I get is somebody wants to enter into the field of technology or a junior engineer wanting to become a senior engineer. So there is just kind of a lot of path mapping and, and just exercises in that sense.

Guest - Anand Safi: And mentorship is more task-based where you would be doing this project where you would be working towards this kind of initiative or just you're measuring success in terms of how much you are tracking towards the next level while coaching in my mind is goal-based in terms of how you're becoming better at communication. There's a lot of overlap in terms of one mentorship session could simply be around how do you become a better communication? But there's just kind of lot more emphasis where coaching is more kind of guidance and direction versus mentorship is more kind of just validation and empowering actually the individual to have that kind of initiative mindset, or just kind of doing those, those tasks that are outlined as part of the mentorship session.

Host - Pat Sweet: So I think it goes without saying then with, with these definitions of mentorship and coaching, that there's a lot of value to be gleaned from the person who is getting the mentorship and coaching. You get the advice of someone who knows the way it goes the way and can show the way right, that this, this all makes sense. So to be, to be on the receiving end of course there's value there, but what about on the other side of things? What about for the coach or, or, or the mentor, obviously you've seen value in doing this in, in your own career, you dedicate a lot of your own time to to providing coaching and mentorship. W why is that and how has that affected you and your in your career?

Guest - Anand Safi: Yeah, I, I think the best way to put it is, is somebody probably, as we all might know as Kent Beck, he actually put it this way, just this last month in. And one of his talks is the secret about mentorship or coaching is that the mentor actually gets more out of it than the mentee. And nobody realizes that. And that just struck with me because it's true. And I'll tell you what I get out of those sessions, right? It's, it's simply the experiences and that experience manifests in many sense. I get to work with different personalities. I get to work with different kind of people from different career or walkthroughs. Like lot of the mentees, the reason that they seek mentorship or coaching or learners is because they come from unconventional path actually, or are they're trying to do something.

Guest - Anand Safi: And they kind of are trying to look solve an uphill battle. And that's why they need that guidance or direction actually. So I get to kind of work with different variables. And that just adds to my experience, like in the future, if I have on my own team, someone with that situation, or if my team is facing something, I probably have at least attempted to work through it in the past, actually. So I deal with different personalities, different kind of career levels, actually, and then different timelines. Somebody wants to get something in three months while someone is looking towards more off a one year long goal, like say I'm only passively interested right now, but within a year, I want to make the switch. Well, somebody will say that I'm frustrated enough. What is that accelerated timeline look like? It's a patient's play. I oftentimes have to say like, you will probably not get all what you desire in three months. You'll get kind of at least something out of it, but it just helps me kind of structure my own decision-making and operational mindset better when I need to practice it in terms of my own teams, actually.

Host - Pat Sweet: So what kind of things have you learned from the people who you've mentored any light bulb moments that, that you kind of look yourself in the mirror a little bit different after a session?

Guest - Anand Safi: Yeah. So a couple of big stark realizations, I think first is I would say that patience is, is key actually in the sense, like my most kind of successful mentees or learners are people well made peace that this is not an overnight thing. People assume that just because they're seeking mentorship or coaching, it means that something will magically change. It's not that the mentor or coach will be able to make that change. They'll be able to bring you one step closer, hopefully in the right direction actually, but that change will still need to be happened to through you or your efforts. And it's also a treat and it will model. So I think one realization is I was assuming probably early on that the fact that I'm giving somebody some guidance or direction and just because it worked for me, it should probably work for them at the same timeline or pace.

Guest - Anand Safi: It works, worked for me actually, but it can be completely different in that regard. So that's just one kind of thing that I am much more conscious about. And the second is there's a huge kind of difference between your, your core skillset as a mentor, your learner versus the ability to articulate or speak. So I probably have a couple of mentees or learners who are not great at articulation, or just kind of being able to share their work actually. And that's why I would go the extra mile to make everything extra clear for them, or just kind of break it down. But when we would do a check-in at the next session, it kind of blew me off in terms of how skilled or talented they were, whether it was just kind of doing a freelance react project and they would go above and beyond.

Guest - Anand Safi: So their code or their work would speak for actually why they are kind of the right fit for the role they're going for. And then it will help me refocus or just kind of realigned that I probably need to work on the human skills off of engineering with them versus more so about the day-to-day kind of actual computer science skills in the sense, actually. So that was also really important that trying to on my side, trying to have an open mind and try to assess more holistically versus trying to do a cause and effect kind of relation in that sense.

Host - Pat Sweet: So I'd like to go back to when you, you started giving your time as, as a as a mentor. And I think, I think a lot of people particularly in, in leadership roles have heard about the importance of mentorship and coaching. Maybe some organizations even have formal programs, but for most people it's a bit of a black box. They don't really know what to do with a mentee that comes to them. So I'd like to know a little bit more about how you got started yourself, what resources you may have relied on, and what kinds of things you might recommend to people who would like to establish coaching skills or mentorship skills.

Guest - Anand Safi: Yeah, I think the more formal version of mentorship or coaching as we take it now probably was later actually in my journey for me, when I look back on to know when I would now think that my first kind of entry into this whole mentorship and coaching area started was simply when somebody new joined my team when I was in engineering individual contributor. It is just a kind of my I would say in, in just kind of my operational model that because I was welcomed and felt supported when I was being onboarded on the team, I want to make sure that somebody who's joined the team or even the extended team for that matter is given the same kind of support and onboarding experience actually. So it's not that I, as an agility, contributor was in charge of the onboarding program, or I just kind of did every single thing, but whatever it was in my power.

Guest - Anand Safi: So that is just giving somebody the psychological safety to ask questions, actually, just by sharing upfront in that initial icebreaker or coffee conversation that I'll do. Like this is kind of what I realized that these are kind of things that, that I have kind of come to realization from what I initially expected. Whereas it's currently feel free to ask questions I'm there to help I've gone through that exact same thing, probably six months a year, two years ago, just still, it's very fresh in my mind. So just trying to be that just kind of partner for them in case I needed help and did not feel comfortable or the need to just escalate through formal channels. Like you don't need to raise every single little thing to your manager is somebody that you can just kind of run it by on and who's on the team or just a fellow engineer athlete.

Guest - Anand Safi: So that is just a, probably, it might seem that it's not mentorship or coaching, but it is a form of that where you are simply giving somebody that psychological safety or a safe space to ask questions or be themselves that is kind of the core to any mentorship or coaching session, if the mentee, or is not kind of able to ask questions freely or are hesitant just because kind of how you have certain presence reporting language. Actually, they probably are 10 things running across their mind, but they'll dismiss eight of them as naive and just ask them to be too, but you want them to ask those channels even two more actually. So that's just kind of those early things that was in mean just to help unblock the team or just kind of be there for supporting the teammates that just led me to that nature of just a kind of more formalizing in terms of, okay, now once I built enough skillset or just kind of established my own kind of position in my technologic career I felt comfortable then focusing on the skill aspects early on, it was simply the process and the personality and the people aspects of things.

Guest - Anand Safi: But later on, it became the still aspect as I kind of grew in my own career and, and reach a certain position where I felt comfortable to be able to coach or mentor somebody on that specific technical skillsets. Okay.

Host - Pat Sweet: So at some point, at some point you you clearly decided this was something that was, that was important to you important enough to pursue it after hours, so to speak. And I know from having, having discuss things with you you, you spend time with best practice, which is one of the major platforms. Plato is another one I'd like to know a bit more about what compelled you to go above and beyond and outside of your, your day job. So to speak, to, to spend time there, there's a certain, it strikes me as, as as altruism you know, to, to go, to, to go beyond your own organization, to help, to help other engineers, other technical folks. But, but it must be, it must be an awful lot of work. So, so tell me a bit more about, about that and why, why that's so important to you.

Guest - Anand Safi: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right in terms of, if I were to do all of this on my own, I definitely do. They wanted to do our practice that's in some form in a continuous fashion, but I quickly realized in terms of, it will be a lot of work for me to spend time for us soliciting who needs help trying to establish rapport or trust with them in terms of I can help you or just, I feel I can help you let's have a conversation trying to set something up. That's how, when I started to look for those kind of shortcuts or quick fix solutions, like what if a platform took care of the matching or just a logistical aspect. And all I need to do is show up with my best self and just kind of my consciousness and with the right owner motivation, which I already had, and then see how it goes, athlete.

Guest - Anand Safi: That's how I started across variety of platforms. Each platform sells its kind of own unique kind of position because each platform has found kind of its niche in terms of the type of mentee that all comes from mentor crews, where I first started is more for people who are looking to grow in their engineering, icy careers, or looking to come into engineering. Plato is a very much established engineering leadership community. So which came late actually, because I was still finding my own ground as an engineering leader. I definitely had a lot of IC experience. I stuck with the mentor crews first, then more on the Plato and then best practice or builds upon kind of the finer aspects of Play-Doh. And, and just also is another alternative that I, I love to work with in that sense. So that was kind of how I arrived in terms of, I cut down my work by 50% or more that I felt comfortable as you said to still put in the hours, but it, it's not that it's going to take me twice the time first to find talent and then kind of set up a sessions with them.

Guest - Anand Safi: So that is how just given my current kind of I would say career journey or just my professional I would say personal branding till now through LinkedIn or just whatever it is, I was able to get a decent exposure on these platforms. So that one part was taken care of. The second breakthrough moment was one of my first mentees is is, is is a guy in his forties from Israel actually. I had no idea on like how he found me or he connected with me for what reason, but in one of the first couple of sessions, like I could see it's such a kind of in, in, in kind of his, his expressions face or just the, how happy it was that there was somebody on the other side of the world trying to listen to him while he was still struggling to articulate that just because of language problems or barriers, language barriers, just from there.

Guest - Anand Safi: And he got someone that, who, who kind of just gave a if I may, or just kind of cared about kind of what he was trying to accomplish. He had done engineering degree before he had worked in technology five, six years ago, we real constraints or problems. He had to take up a full-time cash job in the hotel. And it was trying to get back into checking the lodge actually. And for him, all he wanted is just somebody to listen to, or just kind of not have for once that figure that we all have, like I'm talking to a mentor or a coach. It feels weird talking to some professional career coach or somebody who has gone through a lot of tradings certification and presents a certain way. I wanted to just kind of make sure that I, it was somebody who was like talking to in a coffee shop in the first few sessions and that's how kind of we found our frequency to match.

Guest - Anand Safi: And then we did great work. He has done four projects over the past year. He is interviewing actively here, almost nearing an offer. So it's just kind of that breakthrough moment in terms of, there's such a demand both ways first for me to help as much folks I can. The benefit is a platform can take care of the logistical aspect. And then just for four people out there, we're trying to get that quality guidance because it might not be able a label at that scale and form in their own countries or markets actually. So that's why we see an increasing number of people from, from Asia Europe, or just kind of middle east, trying to use the talent in north America for these very reasons. Actually,

Host - Pat Sweet: That's really interesting. And that's something that I suppose should have occurred to me, but didn't really just, just how global reach these, these platforms would, would facilitate. And then that must be this, this this unexpected bonus, the ability to interact with people worldwide. I think they'd be incredibly gratifying. Do you find, as you work with people in different cultures, different places, different industries that the challenges faced very wildly or, or do you find, do you find certain themes that keep, they keep reemerging in this technical world?

Guest - Anand Safi: Yeah, and that's probably, I think I should have mentioned earlier, but that's a learning moment for me, right? Because this is also one of the big, big reasons that I'm sticking to some of the platform-based mentoring, because there might be a learner from India. There might be somebody I have currently people from Philippines, from India, from Israel, as I said. And when I try to apply that the times have struggled is when I feel I have got this and I try to apply my kind of proven techniques and skills, whether it's just kind of searching for a role or recruiter outreach, or just kind of prepping for an interview. I see there are certain nuances and differences when it comes to those markets in terms of what works, what doesn't. And it's the way I think is, is probably that's why I just say I can only guide her, suggest you take it with a grain of salt.

Guest - Anand Safi: This is where probably you need to coach or mentor me and say kind of what have you observed actually, and then we can work together to come up with an optimal, a way to strategize and kind of approach that problem. So that way it's very kind of bi-directional in the sense, because I know that just for now, for every single kind of market or variance, I would not have that kind of quality stuff to offer that just works outright. I definitely have a lot of great ideas. I can definitely listen to ideas that people want to share and validate, or just kind of correct, or just kind of work with you in terms of how does design are structured better. But that is where it goes back to also can vaccine, like that is where I see most value for me, that it just in my normal role or day to day would not kind of give me that luxury to experience so many different cultures and situations. And I would only have finite number of experiences for that matter.

Host - Pat Sweet: Well, one of the things that I've heard from a number of different leadership and coaching scholars is the, the importance of being curious. And one of the things that, and this is absolutely a challenge for me and I suspected it is for many who were once the individual contributor and got into leadership and management, that it's very easy to feel like you have the answer. It's very easy to feel like when people come to you, that's what they're looking for, solve my problem. When, when often that that's not the case, you mentioned this earlier, how much, how much your, your mentee and Israel valued someone, just listening to them, just hearing them out. And I think that's that's really interesting that you highlight that it's almost this forced curiosity that you have to have about people in, in other industries, other parts of the world, because, you know, you don't necessarily have the answer. You don't have the technical background that is necessarily relevant in different places, different cultures. Th this is, this is really fascinating to me.

Guest - Anand Safi: Yeah. And also to build upon that, it's, it's also it's not always a bed of roses in that sense that there's also the hard times when, and it often happens is when you do have the answer and you just simply don't want to give it actually. And that is kind of where I have some conversations where people are simply looking to just use this as kind of a guide for completing kind of say homework or their project. Like I'm stuck with this react Redux thing. This is the error I'm getting. Can you solve it? I can probably be curious about how are you approaching it? How are you debugging it, how you tried to replicate it have you put some console logging, have you tried to do break points? So that is kind of where I would just can lead you in that direction, but I don't want to solve it for you.

Guest - Anand Safi: And that is an important part of mentorship and coaching. Otherwise, you will become a bottleneck because they will feel they are completed the project, but it's basically, you kind of help them with that last mile push or delivery. So it's important that they go through that hustle because and, and that's really important. I told, I tell people I never focused in mentorship and coaching sessions in terms of what library you want to pick, or what tech stack we want to pick after a certain point, because if their goal is to get a job in the company that will actually vary depending on what that company, your team is focusing on right there. If we spent an ear for someone to get better at JavaScript and react, and if the job they get is using TypeScript or view or something, totally else, it defeats the whole purpose of the mentorship. It's getting the fundamentals and approach in terms of how would you work with technologies at a foundational level. And that is why the focus is always entrance of leading to it as a solution versus solving something right there. And then actually,

Host - Pat Sweet: So I'm hoping that by this point in the conversation that many of the people listening are convinced both of the value of, of getting a mentor or a coach but also of being a mentor or a coach, how would you recommend people get started? And, and let's let, let's start from the perspective of someone who's looking for a coach or a mentor, what should someone look for in a good coach or mentor, and how might they approach structuring that relationship and getting things started?

Guest - Anand Safi: Yeah, so I think you, you probably started right in there last one, curiosity, just seeing how the person, so it's not that probably that you just, by looking at the profile or somebody credentials just figure that this has just the right person. You might need to talk to couple of multiple folks early on to settle on kind of what works for you, because there are various considerations, right? It's, it's just that somebody is in a different time zone and it simply does not work. That's kind of a huge challenge that we, we come across many, many times I have a Pang or this mentee in Philippines who does calls for me at 1:30 AM, actually just because he does work late hours, but he does not make me actually do at one 30. I would propose to her many times, but that's, that's just kind of how the lens people will go to if they see value.

Guest - Anand Safi: And, and that's why I also make sure that I never miss a single session with him, or I just, I'm kind of just twice more cautious of his time or, or what he's putting into this attribute. So first is just trying to figure out in terms of it, it works logistically in, in one of the things actually or probably to your point is like, if you're a mentor or coach that kind of early response you get is they're trying to make it work. Like it's basically being curious or just kind of caring is, is basically if they will say that I have 30 minutes a week of a label, there are great coaches and mentors who, because of their rigorous prioritization and time management will say, I will only do mentorship on Fridays and Wednesdays from five to 6:00 PM. If you can work with that spot, that's fine.

Guest - Anand Safi: Otherwise, I'm sorry, there's just great pool out there, actually, which works great. Right? It's probably for that very reason that people like me can kind of come into mentorship and coaching. And also we get a more broader pool of folks in that sense, actually. So first to see if people are, are kind of just flexible and it fits your schedule, the second thing is do try to question your mentor and coach in terms of don't take it everything for granted in terms of, once you make the effort to articulate and share that this is my current situation, this is where I'm trying to get to do pose that question. What can you do to help actually, and I have to decline oftentimes because I simply cannot see how I can help this person, or just kind of take up their time in the sense I cannot help because it's completely a new situation.

Guest - Anand Safi: Or if somebody is trying to come from a completely different background or it's just that, I probably don't know if they are at a certain level and they want to go somewhere too far out. I can attempt to talk them down that what thinking is an unrealistic, but I also don't want to curb their kind of motivation or excitement because people, if they are kind of, if they're taught through something, they really want to attempt to do it a week. So I want to make sure that I can serve them better in the time that is allotted in the sense. So I do get asked that question, like, okay, what is your current kind of mentorship approach, or just kind of coaching mechanism? Can you share your plan? How does this normally work actually? And that just forces me as a mentor and coach to at least put a basic framework in place.

Guest - Anand Safi: It cannot always be ad hoc. Like, okay, all I need to do is come to the session and then whatever they talk, I'm just going to play it back or just kind of add something to that. And that's done, that's my mentorship and coaching session actually. So there needs to be a structure, like a method to their madness in the sense. So that just kind of does, does make something, somebody is trying to also try, try it out, or they are working towards being an established mentor or coach themselves actually. So curiosity, if they are able to answer kind of in terms of how they would proceed once you are given them all the necessary context, actually they don't need to solve everything, but at least in general, what would they cover at a high level in terms of short term, those kinds of things.

Guest - Anand Safi: And then the third and final thing is just making sure that they are able to give you time and support in terms of their, the oftentimes the mentorship or the coaching relationship does not work because somebody thought that you are of a label kind of every single day or hour in between the sessions as well, or just with with all these platforms, have a chat functionality. So that's why they will feel that, okay, there is just a, we are doing sessions by weekly, but then there's a lot of kind of things where I can ask every single day in terms of chat. There's a difference in between like being on the same team or company in the slack chat versus just working with a mentor or coach. So expectation setting is a huge thing athlete. So ideally that mentor or coach should kind of formalize some of that, or just kind of validate some of that to you in your first session, but if they don't want, it might be good to check. If they're not kind of if, if both of you are not totally on a different page altogether,

Host - Pat Sweet: And how about for somebody who wants to become a mentor coach and have never done it before? What, what might they do to put themselves out there and make themselves available to people who might be able to benefit from their knowledge, their expertise?

Guest - Anand Safi: Yeah, I think the, the main important point and what I did is, is two things first is see if there are abstract roles like these in your own teams and company, actually, in terms of just trying to help someone level up, or if you are at a mid to senior level, then that interns are joined, take them as your soft direct report, or just kind of be a mentor or coach or expressed interest or your own managers. That one of the key reasons of a senior engineer or are tracking towards one is being able to debug being able to architect better systems, and then being able to mentor and coach younger talent athlete. So see if there are opportunities that, that are possible within your own company and teams to practice because that's the safest playground in terms of there's less chances for things to go wrong because you have the right amount of context by yourself.

Guest - Anand Safi: It's not that you are approaching something totally new, or you don't know that situation. You probably know your working parameters already because you are in that same team or situation or have been in before. So that's kind of a safe sandbox to practice some of those things. And then if you're looking to find an or just kind of establish external presence, it's just probably, it's, it's, it's one of those situations where, where using some form of hierarchical structure might help. It's just looking at kind of the last level that you were kind of in, and, and you will feel comfortable with that younger talent. So if you are a mid to senior engineer than probably trying to culture, a mentor or a junior engineer is a good way to start because you don't want to go to the extreme and do something radical in terms of trying to, while you are your own self, a senior engineer, who's trying to become a tech lead or an M you don't want to work with somebody who is also a tech lead.

Guest - Anand Safi: There's, there's a difference. There's a third category of peer learning groups and peer support groups actually, where there are slack channels where there's round table discussions, all that. So you should be doing those. So try to work as somebody who is probably at a career level younger than where you are actually. So the probable best start for our mentorship and coaching is to just maybe even two levels apart in that sense gesture for safe safety, rather than trying to work with someone at that same level, because you're still trying to figure out for yourself what works, what does not. So trying to even suggest something is probably on a great idea because you do not have that validation yourself, actually.

Host - Pat Sweet: Okay. That's great. And this has been, this has been a lot of fun and I I've certainly learned a lot and, and really value your perspective. I suspect that a lot of people listening would love to be able to reach out to you and connect with you, learn more about your work. If someone did want to reach out, what's the best thing for them to do.

Guest - Anand Safi: Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. I, I think the best way would be LinkedIn in terms of, I do have an actual presence there, or at least I, I make a point to review all messages or anything like every couple of days, at least to see if I can take the next best step. If not myself, I can lead them to the next best person who might be able to help or just get back. So I think LinkedIn will be the quickest way. And after that, I can probably share a couple of links to add to the podcast in terms of, I do have a link tree page in terms of further other articles or, or just kind my bias, some of my learnings that I've shared and also linked to a couple of mentorship platforms where I'm, I have an actual presence on in case somebody was interested in, in just connecting with me for anything about mentorship. It's not just getting mentorship for me, but just anything more that was not covered in this conversation or any personal question that I can help answer or confusion, I can help clear that.

Host - Pat Sweet: Thank you so much. And all of that, I'll put the links to the show notes. Mr. Dan Saffy. Thank you once again, really appreciate your coming by

Guest - Anand Safi: Same here, Patrick. Thank you for having me on the show. And this has been a great conversation and I thank you for touching on such a relevant and crucial topic today.

Host - Pat Sweet: Yeah, no problem. We'll talk soon. Thank you once again, and for your insights, for your thoughts, I really appreciate your passion for the subject of coaching and mentorship that much came through loud and clear. So again, thank you so very much. One of the things that really stood out to me through that chat was, was the fact that mentorship benefits everyone involved, whether you're on the, the giving or the receiving end it's something that could be, and arguably should be part of your career from start to finish. Now, obviously in the earlier stages of your career, you'll be more on the receiving end and in the later stages, more on the giving end, but the point is that's a relationship that can always exist in one capacity or another, and that you can benefit from. And it's really important to bear in mind that being a mentor is not entirely selfless.

Host - Pat Sweet: Sure. It's good. It's absolutely a good thing to do on its on its own merits, but you benefit as well as a mentor. And I think a NAND spoke to that quite well. Another thing that a NAND pointed out was what are these, what are these realizations that he had through his work? That just because something worked for you, even though you've been through similar struggles to someone you're mentoring or coaching doesn't mean that, that same strategy, that that same solution will work for the person you're helping. It's important. Once you realize that to, to step back out of solution earring, and really allow the person being coached or mentored to, to come up with solutions on their own, you, you provide the scaffolding, you provide the framework against which they can work, but being too quick to jump to solutions a may not work B is probably not the best thing for the person who is asking for your help in the end anyway. So I'm really glad that an NAND touched on that. So thank you once again, a NAND for the wonderful conversation. There, there were a lot of websites and resources mentioned during that chat. If you'd like to check any of those out, just go to the show notes@engineeringandleadership.com slash episode 38. Next up, of course we have the engineering and leadership mailbag.

Host - Pat Sweet: Well, my friends, you know how this works, this is the part of the show where I read your messages and answer your questions. I promise to read absolutely everything you send me. And I promise to read my favorites right here on the podcast. I finally got to connect with you, Sue Moses, who reached out to me initially, probably over a year ago now and, and recently made a move to the United Kingdom from Kenya to pursue his career. So really, really glad to, to actually get to, to have that chat. And I understand everything is going great so far major change moving half a world away, but best of luck to you, sir. And I wanted to share a recommendation that he made during that chat for a book called the ignorant Maestro, how great leaders inspire unpredictable brilliance. I've not yet read it.

Host - Pat Sweet: But I've read the reviews of the dust jacket and all the rest looks very, very interesting. And there was a a review left by David mark hay on that book. And some of you will remember back in episode 31, I interviewed David Marquet. So, so that's absolutely a vote of confidence that I'm paying attention to. And the other thing that I wanted to pass along is maybe not a note to, to me personally so much, but I know a number of you in the audience are systems engineers. I know a number of you are Canadian engineers because that's the, that's my background in cozy is resurrecting the Canadian chapter. So if you're involved in the systems engineering world at all and, and you're interested in systems engineering within Canada, do check that out, just go to the in cozy website I N C O S e.org to learn more again, thanks to all of those who reached out. If you'd like to chat or leave a comment, just find me a LinkedIn or leave a comment at the bottom of the show notes.

Host - Pat Sweet: That is all the time we have for the show today. I'll be back soon with the next episode of the podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please do hit the subscribe button. And if you could take a minute and leave a review and let me know what you thought was most interesting, most impactful, that helps me a lot to improve the show and it helps other people find the show as well for more information and links to the resources mentioned today. Again, just go to the show notes, engineering and leadership.com/episode 38 until next time, this is pat sweet reminding you that if you're going to be anything, be excellent.

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