Mentorship: Wants vs. Needs

Mentors generally have the best of intentions. They want to help, they want to teach, they want to give back to the community oftentimes because they received assistance and mentorship to reach the level they are at. But sometimes, what a mentee needs doesn’t quite match up with what a mentor wants to give. In conversations about mentorship, I feel this piece isn’t frequently addressed. There are plenty of conversations about mentorship and plenty of common topics that are discussed. I always hear about how to find a mentor or mentee, how to have a successful relationship, and i’ve written/spoken about these subjects in the past here and here.

One of the most important aspects to consider in both personal and professional mentorship is do the learning styles of the two people match up? I have different mentors for different subjects. I have some people I talk to about being a woman in tech or about work/life balance, etc. and I have other mentors that meet with me more frequently to cover technical skills. For me, I consider these technical mentors to be both personal people I meet with and more experienced developers I work with every day. Thinking about learning styles is important for both. People learn and teach differently. When establishing a relationship with a personal mentor, make sure you’re working with someone who understands how you think and make sure you understand how they explain things or walk through code with you.

Companies with a focus on team health and personal growth have good intentions and look for senior developers that have a vested interest in mentoring in order to grow their less experienced developers. Less experienced developers look for teams and team members they can learn from. When looking for opportunities, talking to senior developers about how they mentor is incredibly important but even better is when you can pair or ask a technical question to see how they explain a concept and whether they use language and an approach you can understand. One of the most important questions to ask when pairing or interviewing at a company is “can you repeat that?” or “can you explain that in a different way?” Those questions reveal mountains of information about how they might interact with an individual on a regular basis, and how much one can expect to learn from a person or team while working there.

Additionally, for companies who feel mentorship is an important team value, consider including your least experienced developers in interviews, and not just in the culture-fit interview portion. Involve them in pairing session or in one of the technical interviews. It will show candidates that you are serious about mentorship and the growth of the whole team, and will ensure that you hire someone that your less experienced developers learn from effectively. While this likely isn’t the case for everything related to hiring, when it comes to mentorship on a team, It’s not about what the senior developer or company wants, it’s about what the less experienced developers need.

A learn/teach mismatch can be extremely frustrating and emotionally taxing. A mentor might get frustrated explaining the same concept over and over again, while a mentee (especially one who’s new to the field) might think they don’t belong in tech or just can’t understand. This same experience can be true in the context of work. A more senior developer might think the members of their team aren’t growing or aren’t learning. They may get frustrated if they’re re-explaining concepts. Less experienced developers feel stunted in their growth, feel bad about asking the same question more than once, and feel themselves like they aren’t meeting their potential. The broad implications of this are, at best, general dissatisfaction and, at worst, a lack of desire to play the role of either mentor or mentee in the future.

Asking the questions

When someone is asked to describe me, the word ‘shy’ does not come to mind. I am not a quiet person and I don’t fear asking questions. In fact, I know that pushing myself to never be embarrassed and to ask any question that came to mind as I was learning to code is absolutely what helped me progress to where I am today. However, recently, I’ve found myself holding back and keeping a bit quieter and why? Because I think that I should know better.

When I first started on this journey of learning to code, I knew nothing and I mean, nothing. I had never opened the terminal before, had never used the command line, really didn’t know all that much beyond basic information about computers in general. Because I had no knowledge, I decided I could ask anything. Nothing was off limits and nothing was a stupid question because everything was new to me. In my first full time contract position, I asked lots of questions. I was able to do this without fear and without concern because I told everyone that it was my first full time position and I still had a lot to learn.

I wrote a post a while ago about how the things you worry about change as your progress from super new to new and then new to first full time position, so I think this is a thing that happens when transitioning from a first position to a second one.

Recently, I’ve been afraid to ask questions. I know that’s silly and completely unwarranted. Everyone knows that for your entire life as a programmer, asking questions is the best way to learn! I hope to never stop asking questions! So, what’s been stopping me. Well, part of me feels like I should know better. I’ve been learning for a while now… I’m not completely brand new to programming anymore, but what does that mean? How much should I know? Is it okay to ask to be reminded of things? Or to need a refresher? Are other people judging me when I ask a question? Especially if the question seems super simple?

Logically, I know asking questions is great. The more questions I ask, the better I’ll get. And the better I get, the more confident I’ll become (or at least that’s what I think). But even though I know all of this and it makes sense in my mind, a small part of me is still worried about what other people think of me, about how much or little I progress on a regular basis, and about what I now or don’t know. I just keep reminding myself that asking questions is good! And that asking makes me better! And finally, that if I don’t ask… even the simple questions that I might be embarrassed about having to ask, then I’ll never know the answer and that’s even worse.