Mentorship For Developers

Building a strong foundation for new developers

When Josh Stroschein and I first started our discussions around launching Code Bootcamp, we both felt very passionate that every student needs to be paired with a senior developer as a mentor. Why did we both feel so strongly about this? One simple reason: it is hard getting started out as an entry level developer! And why doesn’t everyone, regardless of their career, have a mentor to help build their craft? We can fix that for our students, so we made it part of our core goals for Code Bootcamp.

Here are four reasons why every student from Code Bootcamp will be paired with a mentor:

Reason One: The reason businesses hire a new developer is because their current development team has more work than they can handle. This causes a training issue for the business; how does the new guy get experience without derailing the existing development team? The answer is that they can’t. That means every question, regardless of what it is, will take your experienced developer offline while he helps the new guy gain experience, causing frustration for everyone.

While a mentor is not there to train the new guy, they can be another sounding board for questions — especially those questions that may not get asked due to embarrassment or lack of confidence.

Everyone can use a good friend to talk shop with.

Reason Two: Development is a big world, and growing every day. No one can know everything that is happening in every field. However, senior mentors have mastered ways to stay abreast either through experience and networking, which only comes with time. Being able to bounce ideas off an experienced mentor will help our students avoid going down the wrong path.

Ethnically diverse businesspeople sitting at table in restaurant talking.Reason Three: Networking is critical, especially for those who may sit at a desk all day long writing code. Engineers as whole tend to be less social than those in other career fields; having a mentor who can help you network within your industry, and having community helps.

Reason Four: Everyone needs a mentor, regardless of the industry. Most successful people have a mentor with whom they can bounce ideas around, talk industry strategy, get help with complex questions, and further build out a business network. Everyone wins!

Plus, those who have mentors early in their careers are more likely to be mentors later in life as well, further helping out the next generation of developers and completing the circle of knowledge.

At Code Bootcamp, we feel that every developer should have a strong support network — especially ones that involve face-to-face social interactions occasions — and want to facilitate that for all of our students. Our experiences have been broadened by mentors, and yours should be too.

We are taking applications today — Apply online, no commitment.

Sign Up Today to be a Mentor!


Code Bootcamp is sponsored by:
dataSyncLog_full

blend interactive

Click Rain


I would love to hear from you about Code Bootcamp or see you attend our first session in May 2015. Please send me a Tweet at @wbushee, or drop me an email. After all, shouldn’t we all keep learning?

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