Israeli Fintech Firm Launches a Mentor Program Aimed at Female Developers
In recent news, a fintech firm based in the State of Israel, Melio, has started MentorMe. It is a mentoring program aimed specifically at female developers. Through the launch of this program, the team at Melio hopes to bring onboard experienced women in the field to help those in the firm start off their careers the right way. These experts will be talking to the females in the fintech company about the challenges they have faced and continue to struggle with, as well as impart valuable knowledge that they have gained from working in the field. Melio ran an application program to choose candidates to take part in this program. A total of 150 applications were submitted, of which 50 women were permitted to act as mentees and mentors.
Every senior engineer in the company was assigned to a junior engineer so that they can start mentoring them. As part of the program, mentees will have one-on-one meetings with their assigned mentors. In addition, they will take part in meetups that will be focused on a wide range of topics. The topics will be related to engineering amongst other things to nurture the professional, as well as the personal development of the junior engineers. Every meetup scheduled will feature one or more influential women working in the industry, who will talk about their own personal experiences and the knowledge they have accumulated over the years. These influential women will include the former VP of R&D at Riskified, Karin Moscovici, a journalist and the woman who founded the WomaninTech Initiative, Inbal Orpaz, and Yael Karov, the director of engineering at Google AI who is also a successful entrepreneur.
The people assigned to recruiting and hiring suitable developers have been informed to ensure that there is inclusion, equity, and diversity in the company. Smadar Weizman, the VP of people at Melio, added that as company leaders and HR Managers, they need to keep such things in their mind during job interviews, department meetings, recruitment, promotions, training, salary updates, and termination of employment, amongst other situations. Weizman explained that the responsible team starts off with taking regular samples of the gender balance. As of now, half of the workforce of Melio has women. Next, they examine which minorities are underrepresented in the industry, who could be brought on board at the fintech firm.
He disclosed that the sampling further involves a detailed inspection of wage disparities, where salaries are surveyed, along with participation in training and promotions. The VP also talked about how the firm has hired women from time to time, who are in their advanced stages of pregnancy. According to him, the team understands that these new hires will go on maternity leave in a short time and is more focused on their skills in the long-term. The program will be hosted in the offices of Melio and was created by the fintech firm for the large community of female programmers. It will not be restricted to the employees of the company and will eventually expand to incorporate more women in technological positions.
