Welcome to the Code Nubu podcast, where we talk to people on their coding journey in hopes of helping you on yours.

I'm your host, Saron, and today we're talking about management and mentorship with Tanaka Mutakwa, VP of Engineering at Names and Faces.

I've got a first-hand example of how impact for a mentor can be in your career.

And it's something I won't forget now, like over 10 years into my career.

I still remember just how useful that phase was.

If you have a question for Tanaka after listening, don't miss the Ask Me Anything session he's hosting on the Codenewby Community

Forum. Just head to community.comit.org and you'll find his thread on our home page,

and he'll answer you directly in the comments. That's community.cognuby.org. In this episode,

Tanaka talks about the skills he looks for while hiring early career developers,

what makes a good manager and mentor, and how one even goes about finding a mentor.

After this. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

So tell us about how you got interested in code.

When I was in about grade three in primary school, which is about eight years old, our primary

school got a set of computers and created the lab.

There were about four to six computers in there.

That was the first set of computers that the school had ever got.

And they asked parents at the school if they were interested in enrolling their children for afternoon computer lessons.

And for some reason, which I don't know, my parents decided to enroll me, perhaps so that I'm not mischievous at home.

And I started attending those computer classes.

And we didn't do anything complicated.

...