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Mentorship To Me
I want to start off by saying, I think traditional mentorship has its place and usefulness, but full disclosure, I have a negative bias. Here's the thing, mentorship doesn't have to be this formal arrangement where someone wise bestows knowledge upon you from on high. That model? It's broken for most people. My most valuable "mentors" weren't people who signed up for the job. They were folks in communities like Cloudflare Workers Discord, T3, Theo's, Kent C Dodd's, and React circles who just... showed up consistently. Those who shared their knowledge openly without gatekeeping and those who called me on my BS when I needed it. The best mentorship experiences I've had came from casual convos in Discord at 2 AM, debugging weird TypeScript errors, or pair programming on random OSS issues during Hacktoberfest. It was getting detailed PR reviews that made me a better dev, not just scheduled coffee chats. When I was transitioning from military to tech, what helped wasn't finding ONE perfect guide; it was tapping into MANY sources of wisdom and building a network of peers who were just slightly ahead of where I was. That's why I'm such a big advocate for jumping into open source. Want mentorship? Start contributing to projects you use. The feedback you'll get on PRs is pure gold. The maintainers aren't your "mentors" officially, but damn if they won't level up your skills faster than any formal program. This isn't to say structured mentorship programs are worthless. They work great for some people! But if you're struggling to find "a mentor," stop looking for that ONE person and start embedding yourself in communities where knowledge flows freely. Being part of Cloudflare, T3 ecosystem, Theo's, Kent C Dodd's, and the various dev communities I'm in has taught me that the best mentorship is often ambient, it's absorbing knowledge from many sources rather than one guru. So yeah, traditional mentorship has its place, but don't sleep on the power of community-based learning and peer networks. Sometimes the best guidance comes from the people right next to you in the trenches. What's been your experience? Hit me up, always curious to hear different perspectives on this!
I want to start off by saying, I think traditional mentorship has its place and usefulness, but full disclosure, I have a negative bias.
Here's the thing, mentorship doesn't have to be this formal arrangement where someone wise bestows knowledge upon you from on high. That model? It's broken for most people.
My most valuable "mentors" weren't people who signed up for the job. They were folks in communities like Cloudflare Workers Discord, T3, Theo's, Kent C Dodd's, and React circles who just... showed up consistently. Those who shared their knowledge openly without gatekeeping and those who called me on my BS when I needed it.
The best mentorship experiences I've had came from casual convos in Discord at 2 AM, debugging weird TypeScript errors, or pair programming on random OSS issues during Hacktoberfest. It was getting detailed PR reviews that made me a better dev, not just scheduled coffee chats.
When I was transitioning from military to tech, what helped wasn't finding ONE perfect guide; it was tapping into MANY sources of wisdom and building a network of peers who were just slightly ahead of where I was.
That's why I'm such a big advocate for jumping into open source. Want mentorship? Start contributing to projects you use. The feedback you'll get on PRs is pure gold. The maintainers aren't your "mentors" officially, but damn if they won't level up your skills faster than any formal program.
This isn't to say structured mentorship programs are worthless. They work great for some people! But if you're struggling to find "a mentor," stop looking for that ONE person and start embedding yourself in communities where knowledge flows freely.
Being part of Cloudflare, T3 ecosystem, Theo's, Kent C Dodd's, and the various dev communities I'm in has taught me that the best mentorship is often ambient, it's absorbing knowledge from many sources rather than one guru.
So yeah, traditional mentorship has its place, but don't sleep on the power of community-based learning and peer networks. Sometimes the best guidance comes from the people right next to you in the trenches.
What's been your experience? Hit me up, always curious to hear different perspectives on this!
