How Do I Find Mentors As A Junior Software Engineer?

Transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.

Hey folks, we're going to the YouTube comments here. This one is about uh advice for junior developers looking for something like mentorship even though they might not really have access to it at the workplace. And for context, the person that wrote this was saying they just got hired on somewhere, but they're the sole developer at the company, which is a a very unique experience actually. I um I have actually done this for an internship and I went back uh which is pretty cool but figured I'd talk about that uh talk about mentorship in general and see where this conversation goes. So, um, when I've made videos about this before, like not this very specific topic, but, uh, the context is more like big tech companies having access to like many really talented engineers versus like maybe at a startup, you're not surrounded by, uh, quite the same people.

Surely not the same number of people, right? Like at Microsoft for example, there are people that are, you know, absolute legends in in software development and like I could message them on Teams. Not that I do, but like you have access to people around you that are like that and even you know within your team or surrounding teams you might have engineers that have been in the industry for for many many years. And it's not that again it's not like at a startup you can't have that but it's like statistically um you're going to have fewer people and as a result you know fewer people that are maybe of that caliber. So um in the previous videos that's been kind of the discussion uh you know looking at that from different angles but in that I was talking about you know at least my own experience from from the software development side I had like probably the best mentors that I had were literally in my internships.

Not the one I was just talking about where I was the sole developer. not the best uh mentorship there. Um interesting and fun experience for sure. That's why I went back. But uh I had an internship where I was working under someone who at the time was like the second most uh active Python forum poster in the world. And uh I I worked for him for two semesters as an intern. and he was like just an absolute you know wizard when it came to Python development in particular but he was you know amazing developer so it was really good to work under him. I when people ask if I have any regrets or anything like probably one of my regrets is really not like at that point in my in my life I don't think I really appreciated sort of the people that I was working for and like in hindsight I feel kind of stupid about that.

like that was a job, that was a cool job, I really enjoyed it. But um in terms of like getting the real value out of the people I worked for, I think that I you know I probably missed the mark on that. Um and then I I worked at another startup later only for a single semester. But um that one I was working for like exps of Nvidia. Um and so they were you know brilliant. They were just like it it was it was weird to work at a place where I was like even uh like the CEO uh you know on like basically all parts of the business were just like ridiculously smart in like software development.

I kind of my experience prior to that just felt like you know stereotypical you're going to have like sales and marketing you're going to have like business people and then like all the super nerdy people are on like the software engineering side but it was like the whole that company was very small but it was like everyone was everyone was just like ridiculously smart. So that was super cool. But again I didn't really extract the value out of that. And I don't mean like um to like to sound like I needed to be a leech or something, but I just didn't have an appreciation for it. And in hindsight, I feel kind of stupid for that. But the rest of my time as a software developer when I was working at a startup, when I've shared my story around this stuff, my my mentorship didn't come from like working under like amazing software developers.

Um, not to say that there weren't amazing software developers there, but a lot of the people I worked with were also just like new to the industry. Like for the in the entire time I was there, aside from like the first few months, I like we had one guy at the beginning who was a senior software developer. Like he had been in the industry. This wasn't his first job. And then I got hired on at the same time as two other guys that were, you know, they had a previous job at uh at different places, but in terms of our experience building software, it probably on par. But like within months, it was like, you know, one guy in particular I was coaching and stuff like a lot. So, and then the guy who was the more senior one ended up leaving the company.

So, for a long part of that time at the company, I arguably had I don't want to say like the most experience in career, but at least for building in our domain, I would have been one of the most experienced engineers there. And I'm not saying that to brag about it. I'm just saying in terms of surrounding myself with, you know, these these mentors that everyone wants to go get, like the people that I learned the most from were either my peers like directly or just like like other I don't know like maybe even people that reported to me. Like when I think about it, there are two two guys in particular from at least from like a programming perspective uh that I can think of that I managed both of them and I would say that I probably learned the most from them and arguably, you know, I think it's not even like up for debate.

I think I've been been in the industry longer than both of them at that time and to this day. So it's not like again just giving you an example of like I didn't have like these senior senior software engineering mentors. It's senior really funny. Um just like other people I work with. And I think for me, the reason that this worked really well is because I had people that I was around that didn't have to have years and years of prior experience, but they were hellbent on building awesome and like were really good at uh like challenging ideas, were really good at communicating like um like navigating different problem spaces. they were not afraid to to have those conversations. So, it wasn't like, "Hey, man, I read this in a textbook and that's just the way it's done." It was like, "We're going to talk about this and we're going to kind of analyze it.

We're going to weigh the pros and cons and just because it's, you know, the ideal situation for X, it doesn't mean it's the ideal situation for Y and Z." And non-stop like trying to challenge things, right? not being afraid to like disagree or whatever and then talking about it. So, being able to have healthy conflict so that we could bounce ideas back and forth, but um certainly not like, you know, trying to get on a call and get talk with your mentor about like words of wisdom and all this stuff. It was just being around other awesome people. Now, for me, the one thing I did have that when I made previous videos on this that I reflect on is I had a really good HR leader and especially from like a from a management perspective. I think that's where I got most of my mentorship without even truly realizing it.

Um, so again, not like a formal mentorship relationship, but just like she was awesome at her job and she helped me a tremendous amount like growing as a as an engineering manager. So my point is that this is going to look very different for different people. And if you happen to be in an organization that has lots of other, you know, senior developers and people that you can, you know, you can try to get in touch with and and and learn from, that's excellent and like please do consider that. Um I I personally like now that I'm at Microsoft, I still don't have someone that I'm like, "Oh, this is my mentor at work or even outside of work." I don't have that. And that's arguably a huge missed opportunity. And I'm saying this out loud to remind myself like maybe you should do something about that.

But um but if you're in this person's situation, you're the sole developer, what can you do? And I think something that comes to mind for me is like this this last part I was just saying for myself is like like mentors don't just have to be people you work with. In fact, you may find value in having mentors that are outside of your place of work because their perspective will carry less bias. Okay. So what I mean by that, I'm just going to make up an example. Okay. So pretend you are a junior on a team and you're like my mentor is one of the senior engineers on the team. Like they will have bias with respect to like they'll know your manager really well because it's the same manager. They're going to know the team dynamics. They're going to have a bias that might look similar to yours in many ways.

And maybe that's helpful, but I would say personally I think it could be really valuable having someone who doesn't share a lot of those same biases so you get different perspective from a mentor. So part one to this is like you may want to look outside of your place of work. How do you do that? Well, that could be all sorts of things, but a lot of it comes down to um to networking, I would say. So, what does that look like? And I have lots of videos talking about networking and and how to approach that. But this is again going to be something very different for everyone depending on what you like to do. Are you the kind of person who's comfortable reaching out on social media and like you're going to be someone who's active on LinkedIn or Twitter trying to like engage with people, building up a relationship digitally?

What about going to, you know, to meetups and meeting people that way? Um can you are there different events or conferences you can go to start networking with people could be hackathons whatever and through that you meet people that you're like hey like this person is someone really awesome I could learn from okay that's one angle on this the next thing that I want to mention is that when people talk about mentorship I think traditionally people look at this kind of stuff like I I want to find a mentor. I want someone who's going to guide me this way, coach me and mentor me. But I think I don't know like uh maybe perspective on this is changing more and more, but I hear more people talking about this and I think it's a smarter move personally. It's like why do you need a mentor? Why do you need a mentor?

Why do you need one? What if you had multiple mentors? So, what if that looked like less of a um super official relationship with, you know, my my mentor, my one person, but it's like you have a network of mentors, a network of people that maybe it's not as official of a a mentorship relationship, but it's still someone that, you know, you can reach out to to get, you know, some insights from to help you walk through challenges or give you some guidance. Like, what about that? I think that model is potentially more interesting. Um to use myself as an example, um I think that I would really benefit from mentors in two different spots. One would be like um business because I am completely lacking in that territory. Fully acknowledge like I am working on this. I'm trying to be better, but I suck at it.

And I suck at it for now because I don't have experience doing it. It's really hard for me to build that experience unless I were to just quit my job and try doing that full-time, but I'm not doing that. So, having a mentor for guidance to learn from, I think would be super awesome. And then again, because I don't plan on just quitting my job, I think it would be great to have a mentor that's in my space as an engineering leader because I want to move into like a directorship position or like a senior manager position depending on naming and whatever so that I can manage managers. I can have more strategic impact. This is what I was basically doing aside from the managing of managers. This is what I was moving into where I used to work. That was 5 years ago. I have completely regressed in my career progression completely.

So it would be really good to have um you know mentorship in that way. But these are two different mentors completely and maybe that's a more realistic thing for me. But I'm sharing this. I know this is answering someone for who's a sole developer, a junior somewhere. Reason I'm saying this is like instead of looking around you at work and being like, oh man, there's no developers to like to be my mentors, think outside the box in terms of where they are and then think outside the box in terms of it doesn't just have to be one where you're trying to form this official mentorship relationship. I think there's there's more that can happen, right? And the other thing too is like I don't know um for some people they will they will go pay mentors that might not be in your cards as a junior.

And I'm just saying this you know cuz I I don't know. I think for some people especially just getting started out it's like hey like I'm just getting started in my career. I don't have I don't feel like I have money to go spend on that. I would be the wrong person to say, "Oh, like, you know, follow in my footsteps. I paid for mentors and that worked out so well." I've never done that. I've never done that at all. But I think that there's people out there that have and have spoken very highly of that where, and I guess this depends on the dynamic. I think for some people, when you're willing to pay for something, you take it more seriously. I will use myself as an example here, not for mentorship in software development because I've already told you I didn't really have that, but I was an amateur competitive bodybuilder.

Okay? I've been going to the gym as long as I've been programming. It's been over 20 years, which means I I don't know. I guess I'm pretty terrible at that because I should be if I've been doing it for just as long, maybe that should have been my career, but clearly not. Um, but I I paid for a coach and I paid for a coach even when I was in my off season and like taking years off from being on a stage. And I did that because I wanted the accountability. I wanted the additional insight. I wanted different perspective on things. Um, and I wanted coaches that would impart wisdom on me. If I had a coach that would just tell me like just do this and wasn't willing to explain why, that coach would not work for me. I would want them to tell me, hey, like here's how we're going to shift things.

And if it wasn't obvious to me, I would want to say, hey, like cool, noted. I'll make those adjustments for this week coming up. And like I'm curious like why is that the case here? Why are we doing this? And I needed coaches to be able to explain things to me. But for me, that's an example of paying someone for the accountability that wasn't they were no coach that I had was sharing information with me that wasn't something I could have looked up online. And I'm not saying that to like put down my coaches there. You know, one was uh like, you know, an Olympia competitor. One was uh he had earned his pro card as as well, but you know, one of them was an Olympia competitor. So, like they know what they're talking about, but they weren't sharing with me like some top secret sorcery like that no one could know.

But I paid them because I wanted the accountability primarily. So maybe for someone watching this, maybe that is a path forward. And if you're looking for paid services, there are there are people that offer this. You could look on LinkedIn, you could poke around. Um, this is something I have not transitioned over to. Um, so I'm, you know, fully transparent. If someone's watching this and this video is older, that might be something I have. Um, I don't currently offer that because I haven't carved out time for it. Um, but that could be something I do in the future. So, you know, as a content creator, I'm just giving you an example. like I'm someone online, this person found right now cuz they sent in a question for YouTube. You know, there's lots of people online that you may be able to find that offer that, but it might not be a good fit for you because one, you might not have the finances to do it.

That's totally okay. Number two, um you may find that that creates a weird working dynamic that you don't like. you know, it will depend on the individual and it will depend on the mentor. Um, it's really hard as a solo developer. Like if you're looking for mentorship at the place you're at, it might not be uh in the development space. Um, at least in terms of growing as a as a programmer. Uh, I'm assuming this person has a manager. I don't know what their manager's background is. like is your manager, you know, were they a software engineer? I say this because like I worked at an internship where remember I said I was a sole developer that place uh I don't I'm not saying this to like insult my manager but like absolutely no way would I take software advice from that individual. None. Like no chance ever.

You know, did was he doing his job at that company? Sure. But it's fine. I'd have like nothing bad to say about him. But I'm not taking software advice from him because he didn't build software. So he would not be a good software mentor, but maybe there are things that I could have learned from him. Um, for me in areas that I wanted to grow in, even thinking back like probably not with that person, but maybe your manager is someone that you can learn from. I brought up my other internships where I said there were some people I work with that were truly awesome. I'm just realizing how slanted my camera is through this entire video. Uh, sorry. I'll fix it for next time. Uh, but it's code commute, so deal with it. But those people I said like I have regrets with not trying to like appreciate that more.

You may have a manager that's absolutely kick-ass and has tons of prior experience and lots of wisdom to impart. Lean into that, right? Your manager may be one of the best mentors that you have. They might also not be, but I don't know your situation. So, that's one more option for you. Um, the thing that that I want to say and it's not going to be like super helpful with respect to answering this question, but like maybe not the way this person's expecting, but I always I found that when I was an intern at least, I didn't have like any motivation, right? I was getting my paycheck. I felt like, you know, I'm a programmer. pretty good at this. I just want to play video games though and work at my nineto-ive then I'm done here. Like whatever. I'm going to graduate someday. Like I just didn't care.

And it it's such a weird thing for me to think back that at that point in my life I was like that. But it's true. I just didn't give a And it wasn't until I started working my first full-time job at the digital forensics company where I was given a lot of autonomy and we were working on awesome stuff and I was surrounded by awesome people and we were all aligned on a mission and then then I felt like man like I love to work and I love to try and push my limits and I love to build like in this kind of environment and And I'm saying this because probably my biggest piece of advice for you is like if you want to get better, like put yourself into it. Don't halfass it. And I don't mean like surrender your life to this company that you're at.

But I mean actually give a about what you're doing. If you don't find that you care, and I don't know this about this person, but if you don't find you care about the work you're doing and you don't find that you care about like trying to improve and like your environment is not conducive to that, like, you know, I would be, you know, keep your job, but I would be searching because if you can't find a spot like that and you can't like you can't, you don't feel like you can put all of your effort into it and feel good about it, I would personally not want to stay there. Um, again I say this because at least from my experience the the best opportunity for me to learn and grow was not because someone was directly mentoring me. It's because I had leaders that gave me autonomy and they gave me a safe place to fail.

Right? Psychological safety was incredibly important and having autonomy was incredibly important. and they could give me challenges and they're like, "Hey, like this is a problem we need solved and like we trust you." Oh my god, come on. This person, it basically merged into the lane and then wanted to put their signal on. Um, and and because I worked in an environment like that, I was able to kind of push myself, which I think was really important for me. I got to turn here. This person's doing a real bad job of driving. Oh my god. Yeah. Okay. So, mentorship, just to recap, this can look different for everyone. Um, it's not necessarily just going to be one person, right? It's pro, if you're a sole developer at a place, it's probably not coming from, you know, anyone else at work unless it's your manager. So, you can think outside the box.

You can go networking and try to meet people this way. So, you're surrounded by more people and that way there's a bigger like sort of pond of people to pick from. Or if your manager is absolutely kick-ass, that might be someone. I should mention too that this person didn't Oh my god. What? Can you see this on the camera? This person just like blew a head gasket or something in front of me. There's like white smoke that's billowing. Buddy, yeah, you got to pull over. What the hell just happened? Oh my god. I thought I'm not going to lie, I thought they started to do like a burnout in front of me, but then I'm like, they're not doing a rolling burnout and they're like their little Toyota. So, um, yeah, suck for that person. Sorry. The, um, can't remember what I was saying. I was summarizing stuff.

Mentorship's going to look different. I'll just wrap it up there because I'm repeating myself. So, thanks for watching. If you have questions, leave them below in the comments uh on software engineering, career development, anything like that. Happy to try and answer. Otherwise, you can go to codecommute.com. You can submit your question anonymously and that way you can write more. Um you can give other details. The more detail you offer, the better. So, if you're willing to write it, I will read it and uh helps me answer. Otherwise, you don't like any of those options, send a message to dev leader on any social media platform you want. I will answer by making a video response or you can send a message to Nick Causantino on LinkedIn. A friendly reminder on my main channel, which is Dev Leader, I do a live stream every Monday at 700 p.m.

Pacific. I'm driving home right now so that I can go do that live stream and there's a lot of folks from Code Commute that come join the live stream. It's a lot of fun. It's an AMA format, so you can, you know, you can ask questions there and I'll answer. And uh I really enjoy it. For me, it's a lot of fun to do. So, thank you so much for watching. If it was helpful, please share it. That's how the channel grows because apparently I suck at thumbnails and everything else. And if you share it, it helps. So, thanks so much. See you next time.