What I’ve learned from 200+ hours helping developers grow

One-on-one mentorship wasn’t part of my career plan. I viewed myself as a quiet builder and, hopefully, a good teammate.

This journey started as most things do in my life: an experiment because I was curious. I had an itch for more 1:1 conversation and a hope that I could help a person or two with Python, so I made a profile on Wyzant.

Two years and more than 200 hours later, it’s become one of the most human parts of my work. I’ve worked with college students, self-taught developers, and software professionals, focusing on helping them build confidence and clarity in topics like Python, Rust, React, and even digital logic and computer architecture.

Here’s what I’ve learned.

You don’t need to be extroverted

One of my early fears, both in mentorship and in starting my own business, was that I would fail if I wasn’t “on.” I wasn’t sales-y, and I worried I wouldn’t know how to manage a conversation that got away from me. I was even scared I wouldn’t know how to cut off a session at the end of the hour!

But none of that turned out to matter.

In fact, the structured sessions ended up being exactly what my brain needed. Already knowing someone wants to talk to me when I hop on a video call, even if it is loosely transactional, puts me at ease.

This let me focus on the real work: showing up respectfully, staying curious about what brought someone in, and posing the right question at the right time.

At times I feel unnecessary, and that’s okay

Sometimes I’ll catch myself thinking, Why aren’t they asking me anything? as I watch a mentee explore something on their own.

But I stop myself, because that’s actually a good sign. It means they’ve taken the wheel, and something about our environment still feels useful to them. My challenge then becomes to provide encouragement and nudge them with bigger questions.

A few months ago, one of my mentees was thinking aloud and said “I bet you’re gonna tell me to ask ChatGPT.” I smiled because it showed they had internalized when to use one of their tools. I was still there to help them interpret the next steps, but they were able to take the first step on their own.

Emotional safety looks different for everyone

Our first sessions are often knee-deep in technical detail, but as we zoom out, I try to get a sense of the environment around the work.

How do they like their manager? For the college students, do they have friends in class?

That stuff is often lurking beneath the surface. A lonely or unsupportive environment can be just as challenging as a gnarly stack trace. And I want to make space for both.

Not everyone engages deeply on those questions, but it doesn’t mean they won’t come back. I’ve had consistent mentees where we go deep into mental health issues and others where we never get past the weather. Learning to be okay with that has been part of the work too.

Code is a vehicle for human connection

You hear this kind of thing about food or music, but I can’t say I hear many people say, “I code to connect with people.” As a craft, it can be the ultimate solitude. Even when folks talk about using code “for good,” it’s often from a distance. Which is fine!

But for me, it’s more personal. Nearly all of my close friends came from engineering school or work. It was an environment I felt confident in, and that confidence gave me a safe harbor from which to go meet people. Now I try to offer that same sense of support to people who might not have had it elsewhere.

People often reach out to get unstuck technically, which gets us into the space together. But I really enjoy the chance to hear what’s going on in their lives. What’s coming up after graduation, what’s been weighing on them.

I don’t get that deep with everyone I work with, but after three or so sessions we usually have some rapport. My goal is that they leave feeling more seen than when they came in, ideally with their code running.

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That’s everything I’ve learned. Nothing else! Zip, zero, zilch.

Oh, and Vite replaced Create React App while I was asleep.

If this resonated and you want to swap stories sometime, book a coffee chat. No agenda, just a conversation.

This was cross-posted on From Scratch Code.