Having a mentor is critical to your success in life. There are different mentors in your life. Your parents were your mentors while you grew up. Maybe you look up to your older brother or sister? It is always helpful to have people you trust around you. What about having a mentor for your software engineering career?
If you want to improve as a Software Engineer, there are many different things you can do. In my opinion, one of the most effective options is to be mentored by a more senior developer. It does not need to be the best developer in the world. He or she only needs to be a little bit more experienced than you are.
More important than raw skill are people skills. You have to trust this person, and he or she should not be afraid to point out the failures you made. The person should also be able to motivate you if you think that you are not good enough.
Just the opportunity to work with someone who is one level above you gives you the feeling to learn something every day. If you are smart, you take the chance to ask questions and listen to the feedback you receive about your work.
Getting mentored
I recently left the company I worked for about eight years. I had the opportunity to work with great people. Especially in the last year, I had a mentor who taught me all kind of skills. I improved my coding skills but more important I also learned a lot about how to approach stressful situations and how to resolve people problems.
I think that my mentor even made me a better person in general. If you work full-time, it is critical to have people around you that help you improve while doing your job. You won’t have that much time at home to study and grow on your own.
One of the things my mentor did was motivating me always to do my best. It might be a small thing but having a good mood can unleash your full power. I always looked forward to working on the projects we had together, and I was never tired at work and always focused on the quality of my work and how I could improve as a Software Engineer.
I would say that I have learned more in the last twelve months than I have learned in the seven years before. It is hard to compare and may be hard to believe, but in my opinion, I have absorbed much more in the last year than ever before. Having a good mentor can speed you up a lot.
Becoming a mentor
I also had the opportunity to be a mentor myself. It is a great feeling if you explain a concept or pattern to someone else and you see that he or she understands what you’re telling.
I am also a firm believer that you have to teach something to master it. It helped me a lot to improve myself. Explaining something from different angles and dealing with different approaches to various problems enables you to grow as well.
Often, you have to answer questions you did not expect. It is an exciting part of being a mentor. You consistently get feedback from your mentee and get to know his view of the project your working on together.
If you want to become a mentor yourself all you have to do is to help people. If you’re a Software Engineer, you’re probably working in an office. Just walk over to other developers and start talking to each other.
How do you mentor?
Peer reviews, code design meetings or pair programming could be potential activities you could do together. In my opinion, working together improves not only the quality of your code but also shares some knowledge in the company.
What is your experience? Are you a mentor or do you have a mentor? Do you need one but have not found one yet? Let me know about it in the comments. I am interested to read about your experience.
