Ask HN: Mentors for Engineering Managers

I did not have explicit mentorship relations, but at some point I learnt to identify at jobs people I wanted to pick wisdom from. Then either watched them closely or talked to them: chief architect with pragmatic engineering reasoning, a CTO who helped me to understand how product and sales people think, their worries, and how to speak their language, etc.

When experienced people see you are eager to learn, open to listening and act on advice, they will share.

I have managed in the past and here are some things that worked for me:

- Ask the technology leaders at your company/past companies about the managers they used to work with and see if they can connect you.

- Go on LinkedIn and message all of the managers from local companies you respect.

- Do some mentoring yourself, you may meet a junior engineer with an awesome boss, and they may be willing to introduce you.

- This is outside the box: have 1-1s with random managers in different parts of your company. You'll be surprised how similar the roles and challenges are.

When you get a chance to meet, make it as easy on the mentor as possible. Go to them, pick the restaurant, etc. Don't try to get them to help you solve your problems, they won't know how. Just ask them about their world.

Try Plato (http://www.platohq.com). I used it for a few months and really liked it. It's a bit pricey, though, but if you find the right mentors it could be super valuable.

I benefited greatly from my EM mentor, who was a senior manager at my last company. Our meeting was arranged as part of an internal mentor match up, and then we just continued it over nearly 4 years of working there. I think we were the longest running mentor/mentee arrangement from that first match up!

I attribute my success largely to his support. He leaned into the mentorship by meeting with me weekly initially, and then bi-weekly as our schedules got tighter (we both got promoted to manage larger and larger teams). He was always extremely generous with his time, and always helped me sort out sticky situations and gave me direct feedback.

What area specifically do you need mentoring in? Is it more structural stuff like meeting organization and expectation management or soft skills like leadership and strategy?

I have been thinking about joining https://www.platohq.com/ which is specifically what you are looking for.

Let’s keep it real, unless you’re a 20 something relatively attractive female, nobody is going to “mentor” you worth a damn.