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Trading 212: Turning Juniors into experts through mentorship

“We believe that one of the most effective ways to build a high-performing professional is to mentor them from the Junior level,” shared Trading 212 - one of the companies in the Telerik Academy partner network. We had the opportunity to talk about our partnership, junior talent and what it is like to build apps used by millions.
 
Speaking about the role of mentorship, we couldn't agree more as our Alpha programs create a learning experience tailored to our student's needs, where our trainers become their mentors - just like in the real-world environment!


 
Mentoring is a crucial part of the growth of every junior talent. The notion that you have an experienced person on your side to guide you, and to share the knowledge gained from years of building code, can boost the junior talent’s confidence and career development. 

On the other hand, teaching others has a lot of benefits. Mentors become more competent as leaders - it can enhance their communication skills and acquire a new and fresh perspective.

And the growth and success of Trading 212 are proof of the success of this strategy.

One goal - democratize the financial markets

Founded in 2003 with the idea to make the financial markets accessible to everyone, the company has been at the forefront of every technological wave ever since - from the first truly web apps to the mobile revolution with the sole purpose of democratizing the financial markets.

“From day one, we’ve been focused on building great user experience through advanced technology,“ explained Trading 212. The company reinvents how trading and investing work by creating exceptional products and applications that people love. Applications, enabling anyone to trade stocks, ETFs, Forex, Commodities, and more.

"Software engineers and product design are at the heart of what we do," shared Trading 212, adding that the company is built with passion by highly driven people who strive for excellence and value freedom.

The results are more than 1.5 million clients, over 3.5 billion euros in client assets, and a team of over 350 people from 17 different nationalities, split into 3 offices - Sofia, London, and Limassol.

Behind the technology used by millions

For Trading 212, it is vital to always take a holistic approach to problem-solving and building new functionalities. 

“Our software engineers understand the business problems, our service architecture and the underlying technologies and infrastructure, and consider everything when building new functionalities.“ 

The company’s software engineers lead the full SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) - from forming the requirements, designing the implementation, coding and testing it, to deploying and monitoring it.

“We have full ownership of our code, keep it in good shape and make sure to refactor when there’s a good opportunity for improvement.“



This means that Trading 212’s engineers significantly and directly impact the company’s innovative services used by millions of investors worldwide.

“This makes our work very challenging but also gives every one of us the opportunity to grow and realize our potential without hitting pointless bureaucratic walls,“ explained Trading 212.

The role of junior talent 

“We are partnering with Telerik Academy because of their amazing approach towards students and the high level of the candidates who graduate from their Alpha program,” shared Trading 212, adding that there are currently five Telerik Academy graduates working in their teams.

The company has created a platform to fast-track smart people with little-to-no previous experience, and over 80% of their senior IT staff had started from the Junior level.

“Due to the nature and dynamics of our work, we believe that one of the most effective ways to build a high-performing professional is to mentor them from junior level.”

When a Junior talent joins the Trading 212 team, they’ll work on real problems from day one - a strategy that has proven to be a very successful method for extremely rapid career growth explained by the company. 

What’s next for Trading 212?

“We are expanding our world-class teams to fuel our global expansion and innovate in areas such as quant trading, crypto, social investing, extreme scalability and data science.”

Are you looking to jumpstart your career in IT? Find out more about our Telerik Academy Alpha programs. Are you a company seeking Master Junior talent? Then go through our business page or contact us directly.

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