Tech Career, Mentorship & Advice.
The importance of finding a mentor.
The Importance Of A Mentor
In my experience, finding a good mentor has been a fruitful exercise. I have enjoyed both being mentored and mentoring other folks in my team. One of the core lessons that I have gained to become a good mentor is understanding the context of the individual being coached and then applying those lessons in the context. An example of this is questions around finding the right team to work in.
Quite often, we have questions around "should we work for a startup, or whether a team within a large organization would make sense." I believe that there aren't single answers to these problems. It depends on what the individual likes, their life (personally, financially, etc.), skill sets that the individual has, expectations from life, opportunities at hand, etc. A good mentor will be able to evaluate those and then share advice that significantly impacts the individual's career choice.
Best Advice As Mentee
Some of the best advice I have got as a mentee is as follows:
It is good to be a bit irrational at times.
To succeed, follow a path that you can see 60-70% of the way through.
Take a considerable risk, and then subsequently work on de-risking it as much as possible.
Best Advice As Mentor
Some of the advice that I give my mentees is as follows:
Dream big, and find a path that you can believe in 100%.
There is always a better opportunity out there, and you should constantly find it.
A path of failure where you learn a lot is not a path of failure.
I also write essays on Computer System Design in my system design newsletter.
Cheers,
Ravi.