Tanaka Mutakwa

Posted on Sep 23, 2021

[On-Demand Talk] How to Find a Mentor

#codeland2021 #mentorship

About This Talk

Whether you're just out of university or you just graduated from a coding bootcamp, you'll need all the help you can get to become the best developer you can be. This is where mentors come in. In this talk we discuss how you can find a mentor.

Takeaways

What is mentorship?
Where to find mentors.
How to ask someone to be your mentor.

Slides

>> Click here to download slides

🌈 Comment below and ask me questions!

About Tanaka Mutakwa

Tanaka is a technology leader who is driven to help software engineers have fulfilling careers. He works as the VP of Engineering at Names & Faces.

This on-demand talk is part of CodeLand 2021 — a virtual conference brought to you by CodeNewbie & DEV on September 23 & 24, 2021.

Top comments (23)

Michael Tharrington • Sep 23 '21 • Edited

~~Hey folks, we encourage y'all to leave any questions here for @tanakamutakwa that you'd like to be answered in the Speaker Discussion later on today! 😀~~

My bad, I was wrong about Tanaka participating in the speaker discussion later. But of course, don't be shy if you have questions!

fizzybuzzybeezy • Sep 23 '21

Thank you for the topic on finding a mentor, Tanaka.

I have mentored a handful of people in my role and I wonder what your ideas on mentoring someone who is older than you, ie. for career changers etc. Does it makes a difference? What helps?

Great idea on driving the mentor meetings towards your career goals.

Tanaka Mutakwa • Oct 2 '21

Hello

Great question. It can be tricky to mentor someone older than you. There is a constant worry whether they respect your opinions or not. I believe it is important to establish a trust-based relationship with the person 1st. Once there is trust between you two then mentorship can happen naturally.

How to develop trust? Well it takes some time. You will need to prove what you are capable on the technology side but also build a relationship with the person as if they are your friend. Have frequent check-ins about work and life. Over time it will become easier.

fizzybuzzybeezy • Oct 4 '21 • Edited

Good idea! It reminds me: a thing my company instituted a couple of years ago was one-on-one meetings scheduled on a frequency up to the associate, about the associate's work-life balance or whatever they want to discuss, held with their direct manager. Although it wasn't a mentor/mentee situation, I had a manager 10-15 years younger and the meeting helped strengthen our relationship even though we got along really well to begin with. Thank you Tanaka!

Jeremy Friesen • Sep 23 '21

Thanks Tanaka for sharing about mentoring. I've been mentoring off and on for years, and it's one of the most rewarding things I've done. I have some time and space for mentoring and am available. You can see my resume at takeonrules.com/about/resume, which should give you some idea of my experience.

Bea • Sep 23 '21

An amazing mentoring programme that I've finished is Black Valley blackvalley.co.uk/ - As a frontend developer, I wanted to learn more about backend development. My mentoring was amazing and knowledgeable. As a result, I've gained new backend skills with Nodejs.

Glenn • Sep 23 '21 • Edited

I need to find a coder/business founder mentor. Anyone have any website suggestions?

I'm currently working on: FetchWork.io

Novice • Sep 23 '21

The talk is really for you then! Good luck 👍

Novice • Sep 23 '21

I believe a mentor can be someone who motivates us and pushes us to do something better. Mentors play a keen role in helping individuals or a community either knowingly or unknowingly (might be possible that a person whom we consider as our mentor is unaware).