About two weeks ago, I started the mentor matching cycle for Sun’s Global Sales and Service (GSS) SEED term and a PreSEED mentoring term. As of now, 37 out of 80 participants have been matched with mentors (46%). There were quite a few potential mentors who delayed replies until they got home from last week’s JavaOne conference. Both terms will run 15 June – 15 December 2009.
PreSEED participants are limited to “principal level” mentors (just below executive level). The 26 new PreSEED mentors have titles like Senior Staff Engineer, Manager, and Senior Program Manager. The 11 SEED mentors matched so far have titles like Senior Director, Vice President, and Distinguished Engineer.
Most of the mentees in both terms are based outside of the USA. The mentor and mentee often work at great distances from each other. So far, in addition to pairs who are both in the USA, we have pairs working from:
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- Bangalore, India and Tokyo, Japan
- Brush Prairie WA, USA and Sale, UK
- Burlington, MA USA and Velizy, France
- Camberley UK and Ratingen, Germany
- Hamburg, Germany and McLean VA, USA
- Hong Kong and Chengdu, China
- Kirchheim-heimstetten, Germany and Zaventem, Belgium
- London and Camberley UK
- Menlo Park CA, USA and Bangalore, India
- Menlo Park CA, USA and Beijing, China
- Menlo Park CA, USA and Madrid, Spain
- Montbonnot Saint Martin, France and Padova, Italy
- Prague, Czech Republic and Madrid, Spain
- Prague and Prague, Czech Republic
- Santa Clara CA, USA and Budapest, Hungary
- Santa Clara CA, USA and Gothenberg, Sweden
- Santa Clara CA, USA and Rome, Italy
- Somerset NJ, USA and Oslo, Norway
Quarterly SEED satisfaction reports over many years have shown no statistical difference between working locally and at a distance. The average program satisfaction reported tops 90%.
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