Mentorship Q&A and Videos

I am not sure if we have a option of 1:1 mentoring.

I'm feeling very undervalued at my current position. I've been working on my service the longest and therefore was the one that onboarded most of my team. In 2023 my manager and tech lead have largely been too busy to help. For instance, I only have 1-1s one every 2-3 weeks.

The new members we got on our team were new to the company and one in particular has relatively poor communication skills, so I have had to spend a lot of time onboarding them.

Unfortunately, in my performance reviews the main emphasis is on the work that I am delivering and there is not much emphasis on the impact I've had through the rest of the team. But the couple of months I tried focusing more on my work, I noticed the culture on the team degrading.

The hardest part for me has been that I have found my manager very unhelpful in helping me with my career and other frustrations. There have been multiple times where instead of helping I've felt as if he's blamed me. I have expressed this to them, but they have not changed.

Now I'm in late stages of interviews with 3 companies. I estimate the pay increase would be between 10-25% if I receive an offer.

Our team also just changed significantly, we swapped a mid-level engineer with a senior-engineer and got a new manager. They will be reporting to my previous manager so that manager will still be around.

I'm optimistic that the new manager and teammate will upgrade my situation but given the more than a year of frustration without improvement I'm still leaning towards leaving. Though I am having second thoughts as well.

I'd love to get any advice on how to handle my situation. Thanks so much!

Looking for resources on increasing your team's / peer's productivity. I thought I've seen some videos / posts in the past about this and wanted to brainstorm some ways I can boost the productivity of those around me.

Ultimately, there is no shortcut to a promotion at this level—it requires significant, consistent contributions that demonstrate your readiness to operate at a higher level of responsibility and impact. And I understand that it might not be easy on those levels, but most of the things described in the official documentation are pretty intense. Is there an easier path to get to the top by doing things smarter and not harder? For instance, there are things that people could do in other companies for bonus points like organizing hike for the team, building Movember type of volunteering event or soccer tournament for the org?

How about the following examples?

Mentorship and Team Development:

Actively mentor junior engineers and contribute to team development. This can include leading internal workshops, contributing to onboarding processes, or providing regular, constructive feedback to peers.

Community and Culture Contribution:

Contribute to the company's engineering culture and community. This can involve contributing to open-source projects, improving internal tools, writing engineering blogs, or participating in company-sponsored volunteer events.

Finding a mentor requires effort and patience. It’s about building relationships based on trust, respect, and mutual benefit. By actively seeking out mentors and demonstrating your commitment to growth, you can gain invaluable guidance and support as you navigate your career path.

How to find the best people who would like to be mentored and people who are mentors?

1. What are the key relationships you need to develop to increase your influence within the organization?

2. How can you demonstrate your expertise and value to others without stepping on toes or appearing overly ambitious?

3. What are the unmet needs or pain points within the organization that you can address to gain credibility and visibility?

4. How can you leverage the principles of reciprocity and mutual benefit to build alliances across different teams or departments?

5. What communication strategies can you employ to effectively share your ideas and persuade others without formal authority?

Fitting into an Established Organization:

1. What is the prevailing culture within the organization, and how does it manifest in day-to-day operations and decision-making?

2. Who are the key stakeholders and decision-makers, and what are their expectations for new members of the organization?

3. What informal networks or communication channels exist, and how can you effectively navigate them to build relationships?

4. How can you demonstrate respect for existing norms and traditions while also introducing fresh perspectives and ideas?

5. What initiatives or projects can you undertake that align with the organization's goals and also allow you to showcase your skills and contributions?

6. How can you seek out mentors or advocates within the organization who can provide guidance and support as you integrate into the company?

I've been 2 years in my team and I'm the only person working on the front end side. The other 5 engineers in the team are all in backend. Last month, there's a new college grad joining the team and my manager has asked me to onboard the new hire to frontend side. I have concerns that after onboarding a new hire, I won't be as critical to the team. How should I approach it?

Last year I was invited to an event at a Big Tech office and saw a few talks.

After the talks I ended up chatting briefly to one of the Big Tech speakers about certain aspects of their talk that resonated with me.

A few weeks after the event I had a meeting with one of the recruiters (you could submit your interest to have one reach out to you) and you could seek official mentoring from one of the employees.

I asked if it'd be possible for that person above to be my mentor and they said they'd arrange it if possible.

I got an email officially introducing me but they'd be busy for X amount of time.

After X amount of I time I reached out to them, no answer.

It's been many months and have tried to reach out to them sporadically between that time but have never gotten a response both via email & LinkedIn.

I'm not too bothered now but do still question why?

Hi Taro. I am starting a small SWE mentorship program for Palestinians living in the West Bank or East Jerusalem. I can take on 3 - 5 mentees. I can help with technical mentorship, university applications, job applications and, preparing for interviews. I can pay for Taro premium, Leetcode premium, Udemy, TOEFL exam fees and university application fees. My knowledge of immigration is very limited, so I cannot help with this.

I cannot read or write in Arabic so I can only take on mentees that are fluent in English. To help me adapt to the cultural and religious differences, I would like to have some Christian mentees in my cohort. I was thinking 50/50 is a good split.

I know this is a very poor time to start a mentorship program, but I prefer to start now rather than wait. If you know anyone, please send them my way. Just comment on this post.

I feel a little strange posting this anonymously, but I have always liked to keep my race and religion private in professional settings. Here is a little bit about me. I worked in Big Tech for 2 years before I got laid off. I work at a startup now. I did several internships, worked in a research lab and published a few papers. I was planning to do a PhD and I went through the application process but I did not attend.

This is my first time doing mentorship, so any advice is appreciated.

I recently joined a Big Tech company. My assigned mentor is helpful when I have questions, and is also friendly.

However, apart from asking questions when I get stuck, I'm not sure how to best use their time so I can onboard and grow effectively. Does anyone have some suggestions and insight on this?

I've considered asking them to explain how some parts of the codebase work when I have issues, but it feels like unless I work on those parts of the codebase, I will forget what I learn. The domain and codebase is large so this feels low-ROI, especially since I am not working on some of these pieces.

I lead a team of five engineers. During sprint planning sessions, I collaborate with the team to create tasks aligned with our goals. Although the initial sprints were challenging, I now have a better grasp of the team's velocity. In the past, I frequently found myself directly involved in their tasks, providing boilerplates, due to their struggles with meeting the acceptance criteria. I am seeking strategies to maintain our pace without the need for constant updates or taking on the tasks myself, aiming to achieve our desired goals.

Our team is newly formed, and we will soon be involving consultants, whom the organization views simply as resources. However, understanding their skill set and velocity poses a significant challenge.

• What do you do to find someone to mentor?
  • Anything that's worked really well?
  • Anything that's not worked well?
• What do you do to qualify a potential mentee to make sure both you and they will be successful?

I recently saw a talk by someone L8 at my company. They believe everyone should mentor someone. It's not only a great way to improve at growing others, but also a great way to grow yourself.

So I'd like to try it out but am not entirely sure how to get started.

P.S. Yes, I've Googled this already. Asking a more vague question here because I've found all you tend to give really good insights that I'd never think of even asking for.

I'm literally finding it hard to be consistent with learning various software development concepts and practicing LeetCode. I think a good mentor can help me with this issue, correct me if I'm wrong.

What else I can do to target my job search in next 5 months as a mid-level software engineer with 2 years work experience.

Do I really need a mentor at this stage?

Everything is available online. What to do, what not to, everything is there. But still, why do we need mentors and how can that actually help our career to grow? Lastly, where can you find good mentors?

I am a recent graduate who just started a new position at a small startup. Along my short journey thus far, I have connected with a few people outside my company whom I have asked for career advice and whom I think could be great mentors for me. However, I would like to formalize, or start formalizing, our premature (I have only spoken to them 1-2 times in total) relationship which currently consists solely of advice-seeking to a mentor/mentee relationship. What is the best way to approach this? It feels inappropriate and unprofessional to ask them to "be my mentor please!" Any advice is appreciated. I expect the answer here to depend on whether the mentor figure is outside or inside one's company since if they are outside (as in my case) it is much less of an expectation for them to give me their time free of charge.

I'm a new people manager - previously I was an IC. I understand that I am now equally responsible for the helping the team deliver business goals and promote people's well being and growth.

How do you balance your time and figure out what's most important to focus your time and energy on? How do you spend your focus time you do have?

I work for a service-based company as a software engineer. I've been working here for two years.

I want to change jobs with a better organization, ideally a tech giant or a product-based company. Someone I know who works as an SDE3 Level Engineer at one of the companies I am pursuing is very helpful. He is always willing to assist.

How I can benefit from his experience and assist in achieving my goal of changing jobs while also advancing my career? Should I try to put together a growth plan to track my progress toward my goal?

Also, what can I do to provide value to my mentor? When the mentor works for a different company, is it very difficult to be of value?

I recently became CTO of a small early-stage startup where I'm leading all technical efforts, including by still doing some coding, but am mostly managing other engineers and focusing on the broader technical needs of the company. Previously, I was a technical lead and IC at startups where I had led small teams of other software engineers on product development, but was more in the weeds technically/coding a lot and was not responsible for people management. I'd like to learn about resources I can utilize to further develop my engineering leadership and people management skills.

What resources would you recommend to learn more about the following:

• How to build people management skills as a first time engineering people manager? Are there open source or free trainings or resources that are good for this?
• The latest engineering leadership topics, especially in a startup environment (e.g. how other leaders are tackling common technical and leadership challenges)
• How to meet or connect with other engineering managers/leaders (e.g. startup CTOs, VP of engineering, or technical founders) outside my company to learn from their experiences or share lessons or knowledge with each other

Interested in any types of resources including blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels, or virtual or in-person communities or meetups (particularly in NYC) etc. I have some favorite resources so far, but it would be great to learn about what resources others in the Taro community find useful. Thanks!

First of all, I'm a huge fan of Alex & Rahul and I want to grow in this community together with mentors, seniors & humans.

But lately being in meetings I've stopped asking much more questions to my seniors because they come with limited knowledge whereas GPT can follow up with me can guide me expertly. Whereas it can even give me expert advise in tech career growth and many such areas.

Even I don't even open stack overflow now.