Dynamics of 1-on-1 Mentorship
I'm wondering about the dynamics (plusses and minuses) of having a personal mentor. Taro is fantastic in that it gives me access to the best software engineers to answer all the tech-related questions I can think of.
Still, I'm wondering if there are advantages to having a specific mentor, someone a few years senior to me who's in the position I want to be in. The idea would be that they could show me what to focus on to develop my career in a way that is more individualized. I write this as I've just been matched with Orbiit which I'm super excited about, but not sure if that's mentorship so much as peer-to-peer.
I got the mentorship idea from a company called SharpestMinds, which focuses on project-focused mentorship for career switchers for Data and SWE roles.
This question isn't about them, but the idea of personal mentorship more generally.
So to summarize, I have 3 questions:
- Why should I get a designated mentor?
- How do I get a personal mentor?
- What should I do as a mentee in a mentor-mentee relationship?
Discussion
(2 comments)- 3a year agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
Why should I get a designated mentor?
It's just really nice having a dedicated person who really cares about you and your growth. The hard part is finding one and maintaining the relationship as this dynamic is inherently very one-sided.
How do I get a personal mentor?
I recommend these 2 resources:
- [Masterclass] How To Build Deep Relationships Quickly In Tech
- "How do I find the best mentor for me within my company?"
As mentioned before, the default state for a mentor <-> mentee is one-sided with the mentor providing a lot of value for the mentee with the mentee providing little in return. Your overall goal with your mentor is to correct that and bring balance to the value exchange.
- When you have a mentor in the workplace, you generally return the favor by offloading their work. They delegate their lower-complexity work to you (it's low complexity for them but medium to high for you), which gives you scope while allowing them to scale themselves. This is a healthy mutually beneficial relationship.
- When you have a mentor outside of the workplace (or even within the workplace but outside of your immediate organization), things become a lot harder. Be creative and proactive around how you can provide value to them. It can be something outside of work: Maybe they're really into League of Legends and it turns out that you're incredible at the game and have been playing since you were in high school.
What should I do as a mentee in a mentor-mentee relationship?
On top of the aforementioned return of value, I recommend this Q&A: "How do you get the most out of mentorship?"
- 3a year agoSenior Software Engineer [L5] at Google
Agree with Alex, if you can find someone who is able to dedicate their time to be your mentor, that's awesome.
That being said, I wouldn't underestimate relationships with peers or leads who are not officially your mentor (see this Taro post for more context).
