Volunteer Engineering Mentor

Why we need you

Most students chasing a software engineering role hit the same wall: you need experience to get experience. Coursework and LeetCode don't teach you to work in a real codebase, open a pull request, take a code review, or ship something a real person depends on. That experience is what gets people hired, and it usually only reaches students who already have a foot in the door.

The Pathion Brave Volunteers are working engineers who choose to be that foot in the door.

The program

With Terp Tech Path, a University of Maryland collaboration between Black Engineers Society, Code Black and ColorStack, Pathion runs student project teams that build real software for real clients. Not tutorial apps: scoped products with actual users. Teams of 3–5 students go through a full engineering cycle of planning, building, code review and shipping.

Students leave with production experience, a project they can speak to in any interview, and accomplishments they can quantify, whether it's their first internship, their first full-time role, or the experience that lets them break into software engineering.

What you'll do

• Set up the repository, branching strategy and CI so students start in a real engineering environment
• Run sprint planning and a weekly standup with your team
• Break features into well-scoped tickets students can own
• Review pull requests with clear, constructive feedback (24–48 hour turnaround)
• Unblock students on Discord (12–24 hour response)
• Write core scaffolding where it's needed: roughly 70% mentoring, 30% hands-on code
• Give each student mid-project and end-of-project feedback they can grow from
• Own the "is this production-ready?" call before anything reaches the client

What you get

• Real leadership reps: running a team, scoping work and shipping, which counts if you're aiming for senior, staff or management
• A direct hand in launching the careers of students who look like you, or come from where you came from
• A network of engineers who give back, and recognition across Pathion and our partner organizations
• A reference and LinkedIn recommendation from Pathion leadership for your mentorship
• A place in the Pathion volunteer bench for future mentoring, speaking and interviewing

Requirements

• Currently employed full-time as a software engineer (or an equivalent engineering role)
• A minimum of 20 hours per week for the full project term
• You've shipped production software on a team and are fluent in Git, pull requests and code review
• Strong communication skills and patience with people who are still learning
• A genuine passion for mentorship and for widening who gets into tech

Nice to have

• Full-stack web or mobile experience (React/Next.js, Node, Python, a SQL or NoSQL database)
• Experience leading a project, onboarding engineers or mentoring interns
• Based in or near the DC / Maryland / Virginia area