GDG Academy
The Academy is a global community for university students. The goal is to bridge the gap between academic knowledge and real world experties in the tech industry, thanks to an eccellent mentors lineup.
The GDG Academy mission
GDG Academy is a mentorship program that bridges the gap between academic knowledge and real-world expertise, and brings together students from different universities to learn from each other and from experienced professionals. Our program matches students with mentors who are experts in their field, and who can provide them with guidance, support, and networking opportunities. We are committed to helping students develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in their chosen fields.
- Access to mentors -
- Provide students with access to real-world expertise and mentorship opportunities.
- Grow together -
- Create a community where students can feel connected and supported.
- Internship opportunities -
- Exclusive opportunities for internships, depending on location.
In collaboration with the following universities
The Mentors
Meet our mentors!
As an Engineering Manager at The Times, I oversee and manage all engineering teams in Times Media, across three different domains: web, mobile, and platform. With over 18 years of experience in the tech industry, I have developed and implemented career development plans, revamped the interview process, and provided regular feedback and coaching to engineers, helping them grow their skills and careers.
With more than two decades of experience, I have worked in several industries: gaming, fintech, IoT, consulting, blockchain. I have created solutions from scratch, leading teams and mentoring junior developers, and helped companies in the transition from monoliths to distributed, message driven architectures in cloud. I have also made a fair amount of experience in the business segment, as I have made 3 companies in the past, so I have been on both sides of the desk. In the last 5 or 6 years I have worked as a software and then cloud architect, having the chance to see how design decisions can deeply impact not only the software but also the organization itself.
I’m a Principal Software Engineer at Skyscanner, where I work across multiple Mobile and Data teams to define and execute large-scale projects. Before this I spent most of my career as an Android Engineer, so that’s where my heart still is! I also help lead inclusive networks at Skyscanner, as well as mentoring both Junior and Senior Engineers.
I'm a Senior Full Stack Developer with a diverse background, having contributed to various companies ranging from consultancies to vibrant start-ups. With my extensive experience in working with multiple languages and technologies, I have successfully navigated my way from a graduate role to a senior position, a journey I am enthusiastic about sharing and replicating for others. My varied experiences allow me to provide unique insights and guide aspiring developers through the multifaceted world of technology, aiding in their transition from academia to the corporate realm. Passionate about mentoring, I am keen on fostering learning and development, helping individuals deepen their understanding, enhance their skills, and progress in their careers, aiming to shape adept and insightful future leaders in the tech industry.
I am an Engineering Manager in Booking.com, specifically in the Trips department. I have over 15 years of experience in this information technology and I worked on various domains, including banking, telecommunications and gambling, before moving to travel. I worked predominantly on web application. I started as FullStack engineer, then I transitioned to Backend and DevOps. I've been in different implementation of a team leadership position for 5 years now. I've mentored and coached with success engineers of different level of experience, from graduates to senior. I am happy to discuss holistically the challenges of transitioning from an academic to a work and corporate environment and what the skills necessary to navigate a career in our field.
I'm a developer/consultant and business owner with specialisms in Android, Kotlin and Firebase. I've worked 20 years as a full-stack software developer in diverse areas and with technologies like Google Cloud, AWS, Typescript, Angular and React. I've been working with Android ever since Cupcake. I can help with anything Android-y as well as software architecture and security, and questions around career guidance and personal development. I own and run 3 businesses including Apptaura, the app development specialists.
I am a software engineer with more than 15 years of experience. I've built tech product and led engineering teams across multiple industries and types of organisations (early stage startups as well as bigger media and technology organisations). I can help with mentoring students on building and designing full stack and software engineering projects, but equally preparing them for technical job interviews.
Renuka boasts over 15 years of experience in the field of web development, with a specific focus on Flutter app development for the past four years. Notably, she has earned recognition as a Google Developer Expert for Flutter and currently holds the role of DevRel Advocate at Invertase.io. Beyond her professional commitments, Renuka actively engages with and contributes to her community, demonstrating her dedication. Adding to her impressive portfolio, Renuka serves as a GDG Organizer for London and holds the esteemed position of WTM Ambassador. In addition to her community involvement, she has founded the TechPowerGirls community, dedicated to empowering women who have experienced a career gap of 5 years or more in the IT industry. Through her mentorship, Renuka has positively impacted the lives of over 500 women and more than 5,000 students worldwide, making her an influential figure in the tech industry and a true advocate for diversity and inclusion.
I am a Lead Developer at Dyad AI, where I am responsible for solving business problems using our software development capabilities. My specialisation lies in addressing challenges in complex domains such as HealthTech, FinTech, and Betting, among others. I achieve this by leveraging postmodern managerial practices to create work environments where engineers can have the best experiences of their professional lives. My foundational experience is rooted in running two of my own startups, which allowed me to experiment with various socio-technical collaboration models to maximise ROI in software development.
As a Senior Software Engineer, my job is more than just programming. I lead the development work in a big team, making complex tasks simpler and easier to handle. My goal is to make things clear for everyone, working closely with people from different areas like design, management, and product planning to make sure we're all heading in the same direction. Thanks to my skills in Android and Flutter, I've had the chance to work on projects for well-known companies like Samsung, Bosch, Volvo, and Instagram. These opportunities have not only improved my technical abilities but have also helped me grow in my role, making it easier for me to manage the complexities of software development.
I'm a Software Engineer at The Times, my role is implementing and continuously improving existing features. My responsibilities include collaborating closely with my team Leader, quality assurance (QA) professionals, designers and other stakeholders. Together, we work on day-to-day tasks to ensure we meet delivery deadlines of our projects. As member of this dynamic environment, I contribute to a high standard of software development quality.
As a Junior Software Engineer, I’m part of a small and dynamic team that actively encourages personal and professional growth. My role involves a lot more than just coding tasks. It requires embracing learning opportunities and improving interpersonal skills. My routine ranges from undertaking basic tasks to playing a major role in some projects, where I consistently make important decisions for the team. I’m also a key resource for my fellow junior colleagues, offering guidance and support whenever needed.
Hello! I'm a Systems/DevOps/Cloud engineer, Women TechMakers Ambassador, and Google Developer Expert in Cloud. The world of infrastructure, cloud and devops is wide and fascinating, and being in it has this unique feature: it's my job to enable other people to do their jobs better. My history includes monitoring the servers of the UN, fancy private datacenter 3 storeys underground in Switzerland, 70 thousand servers of Morgan Stanley and a multi-cloud data platform at a London healthtech unicorn. A year ago, I took my passion for building new things and love for Google Cloud tech into a new role: Senior Cloud Architect at Zencore. Aside from technology, my passions include photography, travelling and designer handbags.
Richard is an engineering leader with a background in Machine Learning, Platform Engineering, and DevOps. He has worked for organisations such as the BBC, PA Consulting and Babylon Health. Currently VP of Engineering for Humanising Autonomy who are using computer vision and machine learning technology to revolutionise road safety.
I am a Lead DevOps Engineer at Thirdfort, a Startup focusing on Anti-money laundering in the property market. I've worked in a variety of industries and software roles (backend, frontend, now platform and cloud) over the past ~8y and I'll be happy to discuss about the differences between different roles, what a DevOps engineer actually does, team structures, interview preparation and anything else you might be interested in about a career in tech!
Senior Engineering Manager at Thirdfort, leading the DevOps and core platform teams. With two decades of experience in both startup and corporate environments, I specialize in building and scaling both platforms and engineering organisations. Self declared MemeMeister.
With a background in software engineering, Jai has 20 years of technical experience working across a wide variety of industries and various roles using multiple technologies, from Wintel, security engineering, cloud-native, architecture, site reliability engineering and most recently data engineering. He has a wide variety of skills and interests including serverless, DevSecOps, Cloud, automation, Kubernetes, DevOps, SRE, ARCore, community building, GCP, Cloud Native, diversity and inclusion, modern architecture, Unity, cloud gaming, open source, Anthos, APIs, Agones and Android. As a DevOps tech lead, Jai works intensively with his team to create a diverse, innovative and knowledge-sharing environment. This is to foster a working environment where everyone has a voice and new ideas are welcomed. He created a London Site Reliability Engineering community three years ago to promote and create a welcoming community where engineering is celebrated and people’s experiences in this area can be shared for free whilst providing a platform for all skill levels to public speak, upskill, meet new people and learn about the fascinating world of SRE.
I am a DevOps engineer for Times Media - Platform (TMP) with more than 6 years experience in the industry. I started as a software engineer originally but found my place in DevSecOps engineering. I have worked at small startups such as Filtered, medium startups such as Depop and consulted for a plethora of other companies. I can help with mentoring students on DevOps, software engineering, security and more. I can also prepare them for technical job interviews, general corporate/office policies and just initially in getting their foot in the door.
I am a Technical Team Lead at Okta, holding a Master of information science in software engineering. With 6+ years in Identity and Access Management and from the hospitality industry, I can help with anything related to IAM, Security, Cloud, and transitioning and finding your career directions to tech.
I'm the Principal AI Technologist at NewsUK. I've worked for News in the Data Science team for the past 6 years with a focus on NLP projects, comment moderation, personalisation, factchecking, etc. I have a love for technology in general, both hardware and software. From being a teenager and building my PC (for gaming mostly) to working in AI today.
I am a ML engineer and AI lead manager at PwC. I have an accademic background and worked for a wide range of organisation worldwide ranging from biomedical reserach to IoT, public sector and financial servises. I am a scientist with expertise in HPC and I am currently leading NLP projects specifically in the field of GenAI development.
I'm the Lead Data Science Instructor at Digital Futures - a start up dedicated to helping individuals start their technology careers in Data Analytics & Data Science, Data Engineering or Software Engineering. I have over 10 years of experience of data science in corporations. As a Data Science instructor I have helped hundreds of individuals kick off their technical careers. I specialise in Python, SQL, Machine Learning and delivering tangible value from data projects.
Vasudev is a Google Developer Expert (GDE) in Google Cloud and a seasoned professional serving as a Staff Data Engineer at Admiral Group. With a wealth of experience in Data Engineering, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and data architecture. He has consistently demonstrated his prowess in implementing industry-leading products recognized by Gartner. He is a practitioner and an active mentor, deeply committed to fostering talent and contributing to open-source technologies. As a thought leader in his field, he has shared his insights and knowledge with a global audience through over 30 impactful talks.
Rashmi is an accomplished IT professional with seven years of experience in the industry. Currently serving as a Senior Data Engineer at Macquarie group, she brings extensive expertise in working across multiple cloud platforms, including GCP and AWS. Notably, Rashmi holds certifications in each of these platforms, underscoring her dedication to mastering her craft and delivering exceptional results in the field of data engineering.
As a Staff Engineer, I'm currently heading up the data platform at Checkout.com. I've been slinging code, building systems and leading teams for the past 25 odd years. In my time, I've been a full stack, back end, data and mobile engineer. I've built and lead teams, but never lost my love for building and creating new solutions. Over the last 6 years, my focus has been on event driven system, streaming and Data Platforms as a whole.
I am a seasoned professional, bringing a multitude of experience from different roles, such as a Data Engineer, Data Analyst, Product Manager, CIO, Founder, and Google Developer Expert, As a Data Engineer, I use DBT and logs to take a JSON-based database and in real time covert into a useful relational design, As a Product Manager, I launched a physical credit card that was first to market for restaurants., As a CIO, I worked with my team to make 1000s of changes, leading to £7.5m in profits – a 65% increase, As a Founder, I hired a talented team of 50 people to build digital products for the restaurant industry and As a Google Developer Expert, I teach and educate minorities and marginalised groups on Data, SQL & Google BigQuery using sports and blockchain data. I am currently working as a Staff Analytics Engineer with a FinTech firm that serves five countries across Africa, catering to millions of active customers.
Inès is an Innovation Analyst at HSBC working with Large Language Models and Generative AI. The focus of her work is exploring the potential of Generative AI to derive insights and create new ways to approach and solve problems. She uses her expertise to help her colleagues to better understand Generative AI and empower them to utilise these tools. In her spare time, Inès enjoys exploring her creative side through arts and craft.
Product Manager responsible for the Reader Experience at The Times. Experience working in relatively small, engineering led business scaling quickly, as well as within larger organisations building consumer facing products. Many of you will likely go onto work closely with Product Managers. I can help with non-technical aspects of the role including product discovery, experimentation, research, decision making, communication and product development adhering to the agile principles.
I’m currently a Junior Product Manager within the Retention team working for The Times. This means, day-to-day, I work on implementing new features to evidence the value of the product. So, once you’ve started a subscription with us, what makes you stay? I graduated from University of Liverpool and finished Samsungs graduate programme also doing Product Management before I made the move to The Times. In order to build a valuable product you need to understand your users’ needs, and I do this through ideation and discovery in my role. I’m happy to discuss my career to date, top tips on getting your dream grad job, and what product management entails within a Tech department.
I used to be know as a Transformation GURU, Started in tech during its infancy and good success start of my career working in tech and finance that lead me to move in consulting as digital transformation consultant, worked on huge accounts , multinationals , travelled across the world, Moved into product management where I can drive what was missing from existing Digital marketing products. Build multiple product lines for digital experience platform and active speaker in the industry .This drives me to build intuitive products for digital marketers, that makes their life easier.
I am a Business Analyst specialising in Data Science and Personalisation, working across all of our titles, including The Sun, The Times, and News Broadcasting. My primary role is to identify and address issues and blockers within our data-driven initiatives to ensure smooth and effective operations. In this role, I collaborate with cross-functional teams, including data scientists, engineers, and analysts, to develop data-driven solutions that align with our business objectives. As a BA, I play a pivotal role in optimising our titles' performance and enhancing user experiences, ultimately driving growth and innovation within our organisation.
I hold an MsC in Environmental Economics and Statistics with a published paper on climate change. I have four years of consulting experience in Telco, Finance, and Renewable Energy as a technical project manager. Recently, I transitioned to a Data Analyst role, collaborating with AI/Data and Sustainability teams on climate tech projects. I’m eager to inspire students with my diverse career journey, assisting in career choices, skill development, and confidence-building for impactful contributions in their chosen fields.
I am a Senior Project(/Product) Manager in Data Tech at News UK. I have worked here for 2 years now across various squads from data ingestions and tracking to Newsroom Products and AI. My primary role is to empower the team and lead from the front to ensure projects are running to schedule and thus delivered on time. As part of my role I have to look at the bigger picture and create roadmaps that align with stakeholder expectations. We are the face of the teams.
I am Bahar Tomek, a results-driven business & education professional with over 5 years of experience. Armed with a deep understanding of , creative thinking, effective people management, and a strategic entrepreneurial mindset, I bring a unique blend of skills to the table. My strong interpersonal and leadership abilities are complemented by a higher strategic vision, social awareness, and an unwavering commitment to development. My passion lies in facilitating smooth transitions and bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application. Specialising in empowering individuals, I believe in unlocking their full potential by creating environments that foster hands-on experiences and real-world applications. Whether it’s through mentoring or creating transformative learning experiences, my goal is to inspire others to reach new heights and achieve their professional aspirations.
I own a media and tech company. We create content, manage social media accounts for corporates and do data analysis and build business apps. Clients use our software to learn who is looking at their content, check consolidated financial accounts and manage internal/external projects on our Apps. And we're also producing a TV show atm. We do a lot of different things.
The Experience
Here's what some of the students say about us
“I've learnt a lot from my mentor that helped me better understand how I can shape my path for the future. The Software Engineering Internship at The Times from the GDG Academy gave me the perfect exposure to working with a great team.”
“Thanks to my mentor for sharing their stories with me and giving me advice during the mentorship program.”
“The discussion I had with my mentor was truly invaluable to me, and I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn from someone as experienced and knowledgeable as them.”
“I gained a much better understanding of what to expect working in tech and your introduction to cloud systems has really broadened my horizons in terms of what I’d potentially like to go into in the future.”
“I’ve been able to discover so much about the tech industry through the many chats I’ve had with my mentor; these have helped me gain a deeper understanding of how I could break into tech even without a proper programming background.”
Join us to be updated!
The Spring cohort is due to start on the 13th of February in London.
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