What advice would you give someone who wants to mentor younger developers? What are good attributes to focus on as a mentor?

Comments

[Sam Jarman 👨🏼‍💻]

Good question with a few answers.

The mechanical:

• Volunteer - code clubs, internship programmes (I volunteer a lot for summeroftech.co.nz)
• At work, ask your manager to mentor any new hires/grads etc. If your company doesn’t hire such folk and this is important to you - consider changing to a company that does. (I did, loved it)

On the more you side.

• work on your self awareness, reflect on your journey and any key steps you took
• listen listen listen. Mentoring isn’t making sure someone follows your path, it’s making sure they follow their best path.
• lead by example
• be available and expect nothing in return. Sometimes you mentor someone for an hour a week and nothing changes. It can be very demotivating, but it helps.
• read Give and Take by Adam Grant

[Rose Day]

Thank you for the detailed response! I love your point on listening, I have found that very valuable in other aspects of work as well. I will look up that book; at a quick glance I see he has TED talks as well which may be worth a listen. Appreciated and be well!

[Matthias Hempel]

There are also some good sides where you can join to get more information on how to do mentoring in a good way.

• mentoring-club.com/

[Rose Day]

Thank you for sharing! I will look into it.