Ask HN: Suggestions for companies that mentor junior developers?

If you want mentoring, you're better off with a big company. They have the time and resources to invest long-term in employees, and often have extensive explicit mentoring programs in place. I suspect any of the major players will do, but I've heard Microsoft and Google have the best reputation for bringing interns and junior devs up to speed. Facebook gives junior devs a lot of responsibility, but you really have to be a self-starter to succeed there, since the pace is such that there really isn't much time for focused mentoring.

When I was working at a startup, the lack of time for mentoring was one of the parts I hated most. I joined initially because their chief architect literally wrote the book on Java (and wrote curses, and rogue, and worked on vi and BSD UNIX), but he ended up quitting between my internship and when I started full-time. And the CEO offered to train me as a quant when I was hired, but time for such training never materialized because he was always busy with business stuff.

http://obtiva.com/ is huge on mentoring apprentices

github

Serious question, no troll.

Why do so many young developers insist on getting mentoring when there is so much high quality code available to be read?

I can accept the proposition that reading books is insufficient for becoming a spectacular developer. But code itself is so precisely clear about its use and intention, that it's effectively equivalent to peering inside the mind of its author.In addition, reading through changelogs can give an excellent view of how good software evolves from version to version.

I would argue that doing so would be roughly equivalent in effect to actual mentoring.