6 ms·

Which will (sadly) offer you zero extrinsic benefit at almost every job, and will often actually count against you as a waste of time relative to the vast major

Which will (sadly) offer you zero extrinsic benefit at almost every job, and will often actually count against you as a waste of time relative to the vast majority of productivity metrics that companies actually use.

mystifyingpoi 1y ago
Which is unfortunately very true. I think, that in a healthy organization such kind of mentoring requires extremely well defined boundaries and rules. Can I spend 1h of my time explaining basic stuff to a junior, who will then be able to finish his task in 2h instead of 8h? Mathematically this is a win for the company. But economically, maybe that junior dev should be fired.
- xp84 1y ago
  That's the problem -- except in the rare type of org that thinks past quarterly or annual results and thus values training up a pipeline to be the future seniors -- economically speaking, all the junior devs should be fired, and the simple tasks they can do are the same set of tasks that can be accomplished by a senior at the helm of AI at 10-50x the speed.
godelski 1y ago
There's a lot of benefits you get by mentoring. When you have to teach you're forced to think more deeply about problems, see it from different angles, and revisit questions you had when learning but tabled at that time. That last one is pretty common. There's always questions you have when learning that you have to avoid because you don't have the knowledge to answer yet, because they would take you down too deep a rabbit hole. But later you have the experience to navigate those problems. Personally, I've learned a ton while teaching. It's given me many new ideas and insights. But I'm obviously not alone in this. Even Feynman talks about how teaching results in better learning
- thirdsun 1y ago
  I don't think you have to convince the parent poster or seniors developers in general. You have to convince their employers that this is a valuable use of time.
  - godelski 1y ago
    I interpreted the extrinsic benefits differently, but fair. Still, I think being vocal about this helps. We can put pressure on our managers
reactordev 1y ago
Someone mentored you, pay it forward. If you think you got where you are entirely on your own, you need therapy.
- TeMPOraL 1y ago
  Oh come on. Plenty of us here never had any form of direct mentorship at work or otherwise. It's not unusual when you pick up the trade as a hobby in your teens, and in terms of programming and technical skills (which is what we're discussing here), you stopped being a junior before getting your first job. Myself, I learned from many folks on IRC and ol' phpBB boards, and I helped others on IRC and said phpBB boards in return; almost all of that was before graduating. That, and books, lots of books, and even more time spent just reading code online and writing my own. None of that hardly qualifies as "mentoring".
  - reactordev 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - grayhatter 1y ago
      > If you didn’t go that route, you were still looked at as a junior. Your ego clouds your view. your ego clouds your response. He wasn't talking about if he was hired into a jr role, he was talking about the competency, experience, and skills acquired from the years of writing code for passion. If he could write better code, or debug problems faster than your average jr level employee. Not everyone fits into the tiny bucket you've imagined must hold everyone. The answer could easily be, we hired you because you ticked all the boxes, but no one doing the interview could tell they were completely out classed.
      - reactordev 1y ago
        If you’re employed, you’re in a bucket. It’s a cell on a spreadsheet somewhere. I’ve yet to find a junior dev that had more skills than a junior dev. I’ve seen them try… but they are still a junior dev. If you aren’t a junior dev, then you aren’t. Mentorship has nothing to do with what bucket you’re in. However, there are specific job duties of senior and higher that are beyond just writing code. One of them is making more seniors. There’s only one way to do that efficiently. Learning. And while you can go read a manual on how to put a Ferrari together, wouldn’t you want to work with a mechanic who has already made dozens of them? Why do we reject help?
danielheath 1y ago
15 years later when the folks you mentored are sitting on hiring panels, it doesn’t seem so bad. Obviously that’s not why I did it, but I am not unhappy about it either.

mystifyingpoi 1y ago

Which is unfortunately very true. I think, that in a healthy organization such kind of mentoring requires extremely well defined boundaries and rules. Can I spend 1h of my time explaining basic stuff to a junior, who will then be able to finish his task in 2h instead of 8h? Mathematically this is a win for the company. But economically, maybe that junior dev should be fired.

xp84 1y ago
That's the problem -- except in the rare type of org that thinks past quarterly or annual results and thus values training up a pipeline to be the future seniors -- economically speaking, all the junior devs should be fired, and the simple tasks they can do are the same set of tasks that can be accomplished by a senior at the helm of AI at 10-50x the speed.

godelski 1y ago

There's a lot of benefits you get by mentoring. When you have to teach you're forced to think more deeply about problems, see it from different angles, and revisit questions you had when learning but tabled at that time. That last one is pretty common. There's always questions you have when learning that you have to avoid because you don't have the knowledge to answer yet, because they would take you down too deep a rabbit hole. But later you have the experience to navigate those problems. Personally, I've learned a ton while teaching. It's given me many new ideas and insights. But I'm obviously not alone in this. Even Feynman talks about how teaching results in better learning

thirdsun 1y ago
I don't think you have to convince the parent poster or seniors developers in general. You have to convince their employers that this is a valuable use of time.
- godelski 1y ago
  I interpreted the extrinsic benefits differently, but fair. Still, I think being vocal about this helps. We can put pressure on our managers

reactordev 1y ago

Someone mentored you, pay it forward. If you think you got where you are entirely on your own, you need therapy.

TeMPOraL 1y ago
Oh come on. Plenty of us here never had any form of direct mentorship at work or otherwise. It's not unusual when you pick up the trade as a hobby in your teens, and in terms of programming and technical skills (which is what we're discussing here), you stopped being a junior before getting your first job. Myself, I learned from many folks on IRC and ol' phpBB boards, and I helped others on IRC and said phpBB boards in return; almost all of that was before graduating. That, and books, lots of books, and even more time spent just reading code online and writing my own. None of that hardly qualifies as "mentoring".
- reactordev 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - grayhatter 1y ago
    > If you didn’t go that route, you were still looked at as a junior. Your ego clouds your view. your ego clouds your response. He wasn't talking about if he was hired into a jr role, he was talking about the competency, experience, and skills acquired from the years of writing code for passion. If he could write better code, or debug problems faster than your average jr level employee. Not everyone fits into the tiny bucket you've imagined must hold everyone. The answer could easily be, we hired you because you ticked all the boxes, but no one doing the interview could tell they were completely out classed.
    - reactordev 1y ago
      If you’re employed, you’re in a bucket. It’s a cell on a spreadsheet somewhere. I’ve yet to find a junior dev that had more skills than a junior dev. I’ve seen them try… but they are still a junior dev. If you aren’t a junior dev, then you aren’t. Mentorship has nothing to do with what bucket you’re in. However, there are specific job duties of senior and higher that are beyond just writing code. One of them is making more seniors. There’s only one way to do that efficiently. Learning. And while you can go read a manual on how to put a Ferrari together, wouldn’t you want to work with a mechanic who has already made dozens of them? Why do we reject help?

danielheath 1y ago

15 years later when the folks you mentored are sitting on hiring panels, it doesn’t seem so bad. Obviously that’s not why I did it, but I am not unhappy about it either.