Meet Gem’s Intern Mentors!

At Gem we hold our interns near and dear to our hearts — and that’s why it’s so important that we ensure they have the best experience possible. One critical detail of planning a successful internship is to make sure they have a mentor who will help guide and support their growth. These mentors self nominate to be part of this special experience, and on top of their day to day responsibilities, they remain committed to giving back and ensuring our interns continue to thrive.

We recently chatted with two of our favorite mentors — Rachel Bloch Mellon and Ulysse Carion to learn more about their experience and what being a mentor means to them.

Name: Rachel Bloch Mellon

Title: Software Engineer

What do you enjoy most about being an intern mentor?

I love watching the progression as an intern builds confidence and skills. It’s really rewarding to see someone’s technical craft and workplace effectiveness develop and grow directly from projects you’ve worked on together and feedback that they’ve received.

I’ve also seen how mentorship and sponsorship for early career talent goes such a long way in helping a student to understand what a career in tech can look like. I personally benefited so much from the engineers that invested in my growth and learning as an intern, and I want to pay that support and guidance forward to the next generation of future software engineers.

What impact did the interns have while at Gem?

So much impact! Gem interns work on real, mission-critical projects that have lasting impact on our users and company growth. There was a period of a couple weeks last winter when some of our full-time engineers were out on vacation, or on-call, or involved in some longer term strategic planning and we still shipped so many new features as a team, all thanks to our interns :)

What have you found challenging from your time as an intern mentor?

Your intern is the expert on their projects — not you. It’s important to de-risk a project appropriately before having an intern start work, but once they are in the weeds they’ll need to be the one to identify risks or issues, troubleshoot edge cases, and ask for help. It’s challenging to stay up to date on the project while still giving your intern ample time and space to be an owner for their own work.

What advice would you give a new intern mentor?

Build a good rapport with your intern and listen to what they want to get out of their internship. Building trust early on will make it easier for your intern to approach you when they are stuck or have questions, but it also ensures that your intern will tell you whether or not the internship is aligning with their expectations and growth goals. It also makes it much easier for you to give constructive, growth-oriented feedback to your intern to help them grow in their career. If you’ve never given feedback before, this is a great opportunity to learn and practice! I recommend reading a book or blog post about it or practicing with your manager on how to communicate feedback.

Name: Ulysse Carion

Title: Software Engineer

What do you enjoy most about being an intern mentor?
Watching people come in, learn the ropes, and quickly become experts in their domain. It’s so rewarding and heartening to watch people grow. And I really want to help people who are just getting started with their careers so that they can quickly grow into their full potential.

What impact did the interns have while at Gem?
Interns at Gem are coequals with full-time employees. Interns contribute and review code, participate, lead technical discussions, and contribute and shape the team culture. And they all ship great projects that our customers love!

What have you found challenging from your time as an intern mentor?
Once an intern’s project really gets going, you as the mentor are not going to be able to keep track of every detail of the project. You need to learn to trust that the intern understands what they’re doing, and balance that with supporting them when they need it.

What advice would you give a new intern mentor?
Your job is to help a fledgling professional develop early in their career. Listen to what the intern wants, and observe and support what their behavior is. Help bridge the gap between the two — without presumption or ego.

Are you interested in being a part of #LifeAtGem? Head to our careers site to learn more about our culture and what it’s like to work at Gem. Please note — our intern applications will be live at the end of August so keep an eye out!