Ask HN: How can I find a good mentor?
How did having a mentor change your career/life? Where and how did you find that mentor?
Many of the most high-powered people aren't going to have time to just mentor people out of generosity, so I wouldn't rely on the kind of advice that involves hoping that you'll get a reply from a cold call request for mentorship. Make yourself useful to that person, save them time and they'll mentor you in order to keep you around.
But I recommend reading the book itself to get a better idea of how this works.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007V65PBK/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
Be prepared to go the extra mile; it’ll pay dividends not only through skills acquired, but forming life long relationships, which are arguably more valuable.
One of my favorite parts talks about how the word "apprentice" comes from the same root as "apprehend", etymologically "to grasp with the hand".
Evolution has endowed us with mirror neurons -- a function of the brain that mimics what others must think/feel as you watch them perform some task. For a long time in human history, apprenticeships largely consisted of watching and imitating the master, with very little to no verbal instruction.
Watching a master at work can get you on the right track extremely fast since you don't spend as much time exploring inefficient paths or dead-ends, bumping into obstacles, and misusing tools.
Greene tours the apprenticeships and anecdotes of timeless masters throughout history and modern times. He can help you discover your natural inclinations, and navigate the power dynamics that govern your path to mastery.
I've found that carefully controlling the flow of information reaching my brain - reading books (not just business books - the classics, history, psychology, etc.), cultivating a Twitter feed of people that you look up to, blocking time on my calendar for thinking & deep work, etc. - has had an impact in my life greater than the impact that my mentors have provided. My problems are not as unique as I once thought they were; far more valuable to read someone's carefully considered written thoughts on a topic than fight to get 5 min of face-to-face time to hear the most general version of that advice.
But to answer your original question, you have to provide value to any potential mentor. The absolute worst thing that you can do is reach out and directly ask for someone's mentorship. This is like asking someone to marry you on a first date. The potential mentor has no idea if you're someone who is worth spending their valuable time on; someone they will be proud of and will want to be associated with going forward. A mentorship is a relationship - it's a two-way street. What do you bring to the table? Also, at the end of the day mentors pick people who remind them of themselves, so best to focus on what connects you (alumni networks come to mind as a strong example of this).
- Ryan Holiday has some more good advice on finding mentors here: https://ryanholiday.net/finding-a-mentor/
- And Tim Ferriss on contacting busy people: https://tim.blog/2008/05/19/5-tips-for-e-mailing-busy-people...
Just make friends with people who have the bandwidth. I also strongly disagree that mentors are overrated. They're necessary in some disciplines, and helpful in most. Learning without a mentor is like running open-loop. As a new student, you often won't even know the right questions to ask. How will you know what to google? How will you know if you're developing a bad habit?
- A boss who regretted giving up coding to become a manager
- The most senior/productive engineer on my second project
- Lead Devs that understand delegation (really anyone who exhibits willness to groom you for success)
As far as broadening your horizons, there are a lot of non-devs who can teach you useful skills. Some of these relationships tend to be shorter but important:
- A boss with enough Agile experience to write a book
- Senior QA and NOC and UX people (your counterparts can teach you about collaboration)
- Senior QA people (test automation, and talking about test automation)
- Senior NOC people (how maintenance concerns and physics should inform software design)
- Multilingual people (grammar, internationalization)
Also look for anti-mentors. Wise men learn from the mistakes of others. If someone insists that certain work doesn't need to be done but the team keeps paying for those decisions, you should take a hard look at that.
I like to teach but my skills aren't that rounded and I'm usually juggling a lot of different things (I have trouble letting the ball drop so I tend to accumulate too many responsibilities.) If some junior person is already asking a lot of good questions I'll tend to scoop them up, because they can often be made into a primary contributor within 18 months with the right encouragements. I don't know how to teach instincts, or even if you can. I still try, and I help people be better, but with many I give up on them ever being good, and instead I focus on finding tasks they can be trusted with. My mentoring experiences are probably all cases of "when the student is ready, the teacher appears", both giving and receiving.
Other people can't make a step through life without having a quality mentor who wants to nurture them on to bigger and better things.
It is a bit like having people that are sexually attractive or not. Some people have no problems finding a partner, to be pestered wherever they go. Others can go their whole life without anyone expressing an interest. Due to human nature we don't tell the less desirable amongst us the awful truth that they are 'ugly/dull/boring/whatever' because we don't want to or need to hurt their feelings.
In mentorship there is often no benefit to the person putting in the time and effort. That teacher isn't going to get paid more or necessarily get any other return. That person on work placement picking up a mentor during a year out from their degree isn't going to return to the company doing the placement so there is no point in overly investing in them - but mentorship happens.
There are advantages in having mentors but there is also freedom in not having mentors or attracting them.
I also think that a formal, official mentor is never going to be a real mentor. The best mentors don't set out with prior experience and training in 'being a mentor' to mentor someone, it just happens. Sometimes it can only be after the fact that mentorship is recognised, a boss could be a boss whilst working for them but only later in another life chapter can the true extent of the working relationship be recognised.
Equally, someone doing the mentoring might not realise that is what they are doing. It can be an accidental thing. Imagine some loser kid who is an embarrassment to their mother and an academic loser joins a team for some work experience. They might get babysat by someone that has a hands-off approach, not into disciplining their charge. The change from fear of punishment and retribution to just having the space to do stuff professionally might make all the difference for the previously written off junior hire to flourish. The babysitting employee might not be trying to be a role model and great mentor but they could be perceived to be those things by their underling.
This does not do anything to answer your question, however, some people will naturally attract great mentors at every step of their development, others will go through life never finding anyone wanting to mentor them. My only advice is to change the variables, e.g. to do a new job or course, then show enthusiasm and confidence.
I find it helpful to differentiate between a mentor and a sponsor, even if the line does blur between the two as a lot of times people are specifically talking about one. Of the two - a sponsor is better for career advancement, while a mentor guides you as a holistic person. Having both is ideal - and they can be separate, different, or the same people.
(people contain multitudes, as the saying goes).
Mentors were better for me in the early years immediately after college - a few art directors who sawed off some rough edges of the "design eye", taught me the basics of how corporations (and their politics) worked, gave me a variety of projects so I could slowly figure out what I liked/was good at (versus not). Good managers are essentially mentors for the whole team.
One of those previously mentioned art directors became a true sponsor - he continued to give me more high profile projects and strategically dropped my name in VP/EVP meetings so I could snatch up those coveted projects with the reasonable skill level I had. Survived two rounds of layoffs due to him, as well. These are the people that you can and must be loyal to - watch their back, and they'll watch yours and groom you in a good way. There's a lot to the art of soft power behind closed doors.
The where/how question is trickier because other than looking within my org, it was just a matter of vibes and who I connected with on general chemistry level. If you find yourself in water-cooler talks with an authority figure fairly often and both of you enjoy each other's company, odds are that they would make a decent one. Look for someone with integrity, who doesn't gossip but has that sixth sense for being right about org changes, and skilled in their own specialties.
In a way it helps with growth not to have a mentor because you have to learn how to learn what you don't know yet, which creates more independence.
That said, still would have loved to have a mentor all these years, wish you the best!
Have been going independent since 2013 but would've loved to have had a mentor along the way, or even now for that matter.
But I guess I'm old enough now to know what I don't know and then to learn it.
With the increasing prevalence of the idea I have wondered how a having a mentor may have influneced me over the years. Instead of finding my own way with the meager tools I've been able to discover on my own, could a mentor have allowed me to attain some goals more quickly? Then I look back and consider that any particular year or 5 year period my goals changed drastically (both professional and private). In retrospect I don't know that I'd have done anything different. Getting good advice is far different than following good advice.
Then simply reach out on linked-in, introduce yourself, expand on something which you have in common to establish some familiarity and clearly state that you would be interested in some advice/mentoring to achieve your goals. You will likely get a reply that your mentor is too busy for this, but maybe he/she can spare an hour every other month, which would already be plenty and super useful.
I understand why people who are in the early stages of learning about a career would want to know someone like this. How awesome would it be to have someone to help you make career choices. I guess I just assumed that it was always (understandable) wishful thinking on the part of high schoolers or CS undergrads who weren't quite sure how to get to where they want to go, or who don't know where they want to go yet and are seeking advice.
On the other hand I've learned an utterly tremendous amount from just about everyone I've ever worked with, including people way older than me and way younger than me. You can learn useful stuff about tech and life and careers from most people that you encounter in your desired career, and a lot of people you encounter outside of it. Nobody's going to have the answers you need for your own life, the best you can hope for is to absorb whatever kernels of wisdom you can from people you encounter that you respect. Maybe some of those people were micro-mentors, or just good people to work with, and hopefully at least some of them felt like they learned something from me too but who knows.
You can also learn tremendous amounts just from Internet forums like HN or Reddit. There's also tremendous amounts of BS or things that are irrelevant to you, but being able to sniff out the good stuff from amongst the garbage is a required skill these days.
The only dogmatic thing I'll say is don't believe anyone who's dogmatic about anything. If anyone tells you that there is One True Way to do anything, immediately doubt everything else that person has ever told told you (including me and what I just wrote). That you have to use this or that programming language, that you have to use this or that editor or tool or OS or API. There's no shortage of people in tech that aren't wired up to make the distinction between personal preferences and immutable laws of the universe. Just find what you like and dive into it headfirst. No amount of training or advice will substitute for self-motivated passion, interest, and curiosity, especially in the early stages of one's education or career.
I participate as a mentor there. Good community.