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In business, Technical Managers or Heads of Engineering often grapple with the challenges of integrating and nurturing early-stage talent without burdening existing teams. This success story explores the transformative solution – Incubate – through the eyes of Matt Stephenson, Owner of Stepthinking, as he shares its impact on EMaC—an automotive aftersales business. Discover how Incubate, with its seamless integration process and expert mentoring value-add, not only shields senior talent but also provides valuable opportunities for upskilling. Delve into a real-world case study which showcases the effectiveness of Incubate in creating dynamic, skilled teams for long-term success in the tech industry.
What is Incubate?
Bringing junior developers into your tech team can be challenging, especially when mentorship strains your already busy experts. Our solution involves a meticulous selection process whereby our team interview and assemble a team of our top-tier junior developers combined with one of our experienced senior mentors, and deploys them into your business. Our Senior Mentor guides and supports the juniors, ensuring they understand your work style and tech stack. This allows the team to produce real business outcomes from day one without burdening senior staff. As time progresses, your business has the choice to take them on as full-time employees, freeing up your seniors and completing a seamless transition.
Four ways Incubate brings value
1, Seamless and speedy integration:
Incubate not only provides access to promising junior developers but also ensures a seamless integration process. Matt Stephenson talks about how he could see a clear return on investment, as the software engineers from Northcoders became less dependent on their mentor over time, and are now delivering actual business outcomes for EMaC.
“It’s great for me to have somewhere I can go and know that I’m going to get good quality candidates. There’s definitely a return on investment there because what we’re seeing now is those developers are becoming less dependent on their mentor and are writing meaningful software for EMaC already.
2, Shielding Senior talent:
As an intermediary, Matt was conscious to avoid draining his client’s experienced team’s time on coaching and mentoring entry-level engineers. By assigning a dedicated Northcoders mentor, Vel, who seamlessly integrated into the team, providing day-to-day coaching, expertise and mentoring – we were able to alleviate both Matt and EMaC’s concerns.
3, Experienced mentor adding value:
Having completed the award-winning Northcoders Training Bootcamp herself, Vel, one of the heads of mentoring at Northcoders, is able to understand and spot ways of working from the early career developers. She is extremely well-practiced in how to develop and coach new starters in a way that ensures they progress quickly and confidently.
“The juniors who got hired as part of the incubate project continued to impress throughout the different stages of the interview process and they were genuinely a joy to work with.
They were very proactive, very eager to learn, wanted to jump into things straightaway and took feedback on board very easily. For me, it was an absolute pleasure to work with all of them.”
4, Opportunities to upskill:
Through the EMaC Incubate project, which spanned six months Senior Mentor, Vel, upskilled the junior developers in C# before helping them get up to speed with developing software in pairs in two different teams. Vel also upskilled members of EMaC’s existing team, adding value outside of her remit.
The success story of EMaC showcases the effectiveness of a well curated, mixed level team and Incubate service. As the junior members of the team evolve from mentored novices to independent contributors, businesses like EMaC can access a reliable source of skilled talent that deliver business outcomes. The collaboration not only meets the immediate needs of the project but also positions the developers for long-term success in the world of tech.
Learn more about how Incubate could bring value to your tech teams!
