Ask HN: How do you find a mentor in software engineering and in life?

There's plenty of successful people 10-20 years older than you, who want nothing more to tell a younger person what to do and then have them ACTUALLY FOLLOW the advice they are given.

I have a close friend who's about 12 years older than me. He told me I'm the only person he talks to who actually takes action on the advice he gives. Because of that, he gives me more advice (pro tip: none of it is complicated).

My recommendation is to ask people for small pieces of advice who you respect, implement the small things, then follow up and thank them for their advice and show them you've implemented it. Sooner then later, they'll start sharing more unsolicited advice that you can continue to follow.

Joining an organization (club, church, or charity) where you can be around people who are older than you is a great way to bump into people like this.

It became a meme in the professional world in recent years, and people don't really understand what it means.

You don't look for a "mentor" the way you would a teacher or coach for hire. No-one who can really help you would be available on that basis. But if you put yourself out there, do cool stuff and share, offer to help with interesting projects (and then deliver) ... you may find that you've developed that kind of relationship with someone.

If that happens, make the most of it. And until it does, don't block your progress on waiting for that "mentor". The internet is full of books, videos, tutorials, forum posts, chat rooms, with so much you can learn and grow from.

In the end, when it comes to your life and career, you need to make your own decisions. Where you get ideas and advice from matters less. If you somehow found yourself with a mentor who helps you accelerate your learning and growth that's cool, but it's still up to you to decide.

Same position as you. I have applied for a job with with different skills than my experience, so I am being paid to learn, with the seniors help

Still not the same as mentor, and I had to accept some pay stagnation

But it gave me a new perspective on my career

The training is based on this: Golang For Beginners - Let's Build A Key Value Store https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PMVyy5YecU4

How To Build A Complete Distributed File Storage In Golang https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bymQakvTY40

I could have done it by myself before, but with some pressure is easier. Definitely recommend them

The 'from scratch' tutorials on youtube are very interesting

Also nowadays where everyone thinks they know best, and new project keep making many of the previous mistakes

https://codingbutclueless.notion.site

Also, I answer questions and talk about investing.

There are others in my group with more experience than me in various areas.

Why listen to me? Because I just repeat what I’ve heard from people who are smarter than me, and I know my own circle of competence. That means it doesn’t just come out of nowhere or from an ego driven place,

It's a delicate relationship. You need to set boundaries.

I've been put in the other side of things twice now, once by a committee which had me mentor a fellow at an IETF meeting and it "stuck" -and the other time he selected me. I'd say either kind is acceptable to me. I don't go out of my way to look for this role, and I can say that some life-questions are really hard to deal with because I am convinced there is no right answer sometimes.

I say three self selected, but it's actually four. One it became more a mutuality so really there is three. Btw she's younger than me, which was in itself initially surprising but what she brought to the table was a formal framework for open-ended questioning and training on the counselling/mentoring front. I helped her get the quals by being the guinea-pig, and that turned out to be mutually beneficial.

I would be open to "mentoring" being with people who are NOT in your primary field, who are not necessarily older than you and who may not share life experiences. In some ways, the mutuality is the best bit: being asked and asking questions is surprisingly informative both sides. Or, to it being a paid relationship such as with a mental health professional. (which I also do)

Frankly, much "advice" from people in prior economic situations is not helpful in the modern job market. You wouldn't expect somebody who worked in Hitachi for 55 years from a cadetship to understand FAANG culture, and vice-versa. So bear in mind that a lot of the wisdom of the ancients is from different job markets, different situations.

This kind of class will give you a lot of mentorship, not only from an individual point of view but also from the group point of view. They are also a place to get new safe friendships outside of your company.

If you would like to discuss more, you can contact me at my login alias at gmail.

Mentoring someone is giving. And not having anything in return, at least for years. Or ever.

So, for someone to mentor you, you have to be interesting to them.

Ask yourself this question, as you are at least somewhere in life- "If I were to mentor someone, what would that person have to do/have?"

Now reverse this, and identify qualities in you that you can leverage to find a mentor.

Mentoring is a long term thing. So, instead of finding mentor deliberately, get to know a lot of people. Among them, ask some people advice about some specific things. That one advice seeking might turn into two, or they might start giving you more advices, more broader ones, too.

Just expose yourself to a lot of interesting people and stay in touch with people you are genuinely interested to know, or can admire.

Be an interesting kind of person. I found my first (tech) mentor because he could talk international news with me (I did a lot of debate when I was young), my second one appeared in my life when I was organizing cultural programmes, and charity for disadvantaged kids. I met my last one, who is also a friend in an online study group.

Also look for similar backgrounds. I was interested in mentoring someone as he really liked extra curricular learning, and made great web apps. He also, like me, migrated to tech from something else.

Usually they will tell you things you already know, but because of the way humans are wired, your brain pays more attention to it when (1) someone with high status (according to your perception) tells you a thing, or (2) you paid a lot of money to be told the thing.

It sinks in deeper, and you're much more likely to actually apply and integrate the knowledge.

A cheaper way is to find groups full of people who are trying to get good at a specific thing, and pay money to join them. It won't filter for skill/talent, but it will filter for motivation, and that alone can be worth a great deal.

Or you could just email thousands of people until someone says yes. That works too.

(Especially if you filter for "highly experienced/talented yet relatively unpopular". The less email someone gets, the more likely they are to take yours seriously.)

I was naturally quite a shy and reserved engineer and if asked to do something more senior or non technical I would avoid it want to continue coding. People who I've met later have encouraged me to go for it a bit more and accept responsibility or roles where I will have to learn on the job. I am not really coding nowadays but am involved in architecting some complex cloud systems. It has been a good progression, but work is stressful at times, mainly due to external factors.

I would not insist on a mentor, you should be ready for one, when one comes along, be open to it and try to talk to people at all levels and across different companies as well as the one you're at.

- realising no one really has it all figured out, there are generally no "perfect" answers to how to tackle life

- realising you don't need permission, a masters degree is nice if it truly interests you , but after 10y in the field it isn't going to offer you much.

- be very wary of people that are very happy to give advice, or tell you what you should do. Generally judge what they do, not what they say.

As others have said here, why not befriend more peers, talk to other people that are your equals and see what they think, they are trying to figure it out themselves. Make friends in different fields.

Why not? Do you believe that if you mention that you are evaluating the big picture of your career, they'll fire you or something? Then you are in a bad place to begin with.

If you have already decided to leave and there is no way they can offer help or advice then it is good to keep that private. But don't hide your goals and desires from the very people who have the power to grant them to you. Your reasons for wanting to move companies might be resolved by switching roles in the current company. Let them help you figure out whether or not that is possible. After all, good leaders help their people grow.

I also don't really see it as a true mentorship. I see it as a collaborative back-and-forth. Like friends.

My mentors mostly are my friends and my direct co-workers (that i also would consider friends) who really shape(d) me as a career changeing dev.

Guiding early-career engineers is something I am sure many of us seniors have done (I'm 25+ years in to my own career), but for people like yourself with 10, 15 years+ I do feel it's hard to find such guidance on "what next?" and "is this the right path?", and someone that can help one navigate choices which might become available.

Perhaps a professional life coach? Although I have never done so and cannot recommend or discourage, it might prove completely fruitless...

If you think you need a mentor seriously reconsider what you have been doing

Some companies will assign you a mentor, particulary if you are in a group that historically does not utilize mentors much. I have not seen this work very well. First of all, there are never enough senior people to be mentors to the vast number of mentees that participate in the programs. Each mentor has to "cover" several mentees leading to less time spent with them and less investment by the mentor.

A good mentor is someone relatively senior and definitely not your boss or your boss's boss (grandboss?). You want someone who has seen/experienced many things. Someone who has seen and understands things like office politics. You also want someone who will be honest with you. You need them to be invested in you.

These relationships can start from either side. I have seen young, talented people that look like they could use some assistance and reached out to them to offer my help. Usually they accept as I was a relatively senior person by the time I started doing this. I was looking to pass on my hard-earned experience and knowledge to someone I thought would use it and benefit from it. The best relationships I had as a mentor occurred when the mentee asked me and not as part of a program. In these cases they were motivated to learn and improve. Most importantly, they acted on what we talked about. To be clear, a mentor does not tell you what to do. They are a sounding board that has seen many more situations than you and can help you think things through. If you never act on their advice or always argue against it (Hey Boomer!), you are simply wasting their time. A good mentor always has other things to do - their time is a valuable gift.

As for what you can learn from a mentor, it depends upon the mentor and for what you are looking. I found mentees frequently did not understand how decisions were made at the senior level and/or what the corporate strategy was. They did not understand how what they did fit into the bigger picture and how important what they did was to the company. Some, usually new managers, wanted to understand how to motivate and retain their employees. Others wanted to understand KPIs that they could design a measure for their team. Others wanted to understand how they should think about promotions and differnent job opportunities (even outside the company). Each one was different.

The single best mentee I ever had was at a company where we all worked remote. We had regular Zoom discussions every couple of weeks (in office jobs, I preferred to go to lunch or get coffee with a mentee to get away from the office). He showed up prepared - an informal status on what was going on with him and his team, a list of questions/topics to discus, and feedback from implementing what we discussed in prior meetings. He was very thoughtful about what he wanted to learn - how to be a better manager, how to prepare himself to be better positioned for promotion, how to consider various career opportunities. After a year, he surprised me with a summary of what we had discussed, what he had done differently as a result of our conversations, and what was the impact. He even walked me through his metrics to describe his success. It was phenomenal. Incredibly satisfying for me as the mentor. I was definitely invested.

One final thought in the long post - mentors who are invested in you will work to advance your career when you are not around. They will recommend you for positions of which you are not aware (this is how many positions are filled). They will refer you to friends and associates at other companies where they think there is a great opportunity. They will advocate for you. This is an incredibly valuable aspect of the mentor/mentee relationship.

For success in mentorships you need to be invested, you need to get your mentor invested, you need to be comfortable having honest discussions with them and believe that nothing will be repeated to others, and you need to act on what you discuss.