How do I find the best mentor for me within my company?

Question

There is a mentorship program at Booking, but I am not currently enrolled. This is because I’m not entirely sure what sort of mentorship I should seek out. How can I figure out the optimal mentor to have?

In terms of what a potential mentor can help me with, I'm currently spending a lot of cycle on a Perl -> Java migration effort across the company's legacy codebase.

Alex Chiou · Accepted Answer

There's a common misconception that you want your mentor to as a senior as possible: Don't do that. It doesn't make sense for a principal engineer to mentor an entry-level engineer for example. You want to stay within 2 levels of your current one if you can, so the mentor can still understand what life looks like for you. So as a SE1, look for a SE2 (mid-level engineer) or SE3 (senior engineer) mentor. The more local the better: Look for mentors on your team or on a sister team. The further apart you and your mentor are on the org chart, the worse everything becomes. SE1 is a good time to find a tactical mentor. In your scenario, finding a mentor who's really good at Java could bear very strong, immediate benefits.

How do I find the best mentor for me within my company?

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