Career & Leadership › Junior Habits & First Job

Finding a Mentor

Getting guidance from someone more experienced.

Also known as: mentorship, mentor

A mentor is someone more experienced who helps you grow, by answering questions, reviewing your work, and pointing out what to learn next. A mentor doesn’t have to be your manager, and you may have several over a career. Look inside your team first, then in other teams, and in communities where people share their work.

Mentorship works best when you bring specific questions and do the groundwork first. “How do I get better at code?” is hard to answer. “I keep struggling to split large functions. How would you approach this one?” gives the mentor something to work with.

Vague:     "Can you mentor me?"
Specific:  "Could we meet every two weeks? I'd like to review one PR a week
            and talk through design choices."

Respect their time. Keep meetings short and focused, send notes beforehand, and follow up on the advice you received. People are more willing to help when they can see the help is used.

The classic mistake is waiting for a mentor to appear. Most mentoring relationships start with a small, specific request, such as asking someone to review a piece of code. For a regular channel with your manager, see 1:1 meetings.