from Gergely Orosz | by Gergely Orosz

Interesting observation on mentoring: mentorship for software engineers/managers often works really well with a mentor who is a few years "ahead" of them, or a level "above" them. Someone who still has fresh enough memories to place themselves in the shoes of their mentee.

I saw this work first-hand: Eng1s mentored by Eng2s seemed to have a lot better bonding than those mentored by e.g. seniors or above. Also, it "spreads" mentorship more. The most senior engineers in an org often get overwhelmed by mentorship requests: while so many get none.

Note to managers: it's easy to fall into the trap of "{senior eng X} on my team is the best mentor. Let them mentor new joiners." Yes, they are probably the most experienced. But how else will others become great mentors if they don't start? Encourage others to mentor as well.

And for some more thoughts on software engineers mentoring other engineers, here they are: t.co/n6BApjQiOU One of the best things at Uber was how almost every engineer (and manager) on all teams in my org had mentors (me as well!). It helped *all of them* so much.