3 ms·

If you don't mind me asking, what is the ratio of mentors : grads where you work? What do you think is an acceptable ratio?

• pmiller2 7y ago
  Depends how much mentoring is expected and what the productivity expectations for the mentors is, IMO.
• fma 7y ago
  I don't really have a good answer but I'll give it a shot. I can only speak for my team. In big corp, your work experience is based on your team. We have 4 senior dev, 7 college hires who have been with us between 0-4 years. The experience/aptitude varies. i.e. there are some who have been with us for 2 years that is not as good as the one hired. We've had some come on our team and move onto other teams. I have one who's been with us for 4 years, and at 3 years I felt is like a competent senior dev. He's moved to another team and runs laps around his new teammates. Because I have the most patience in the group...I end up being the person most of them come to for help. I'm technically the architect on the team (manager gave me the title recently, too modest to accept it...) and the senior devs even come to me with questions...but of course I don't truely mentor them. But to give continuing education to the team, I've implemented a "Tech talk Friday" where I book a 1.5 hour of our time on Friday and watch and discuss various conference talks on YouTube that I feel are applicable for us. It's a nice way to end a Friday, too :) There's no defined ratio. A grad who has a good foundation, is a go-getter and can learn on their own only needs to be guided. While others need to be handheld. Mentors' should not be bogged down to the point they are not able to do their real work - otherwise they'd get burned out and would just dismiss mentees.