Why did you decide to become a mentor?
After I became an independent in 2022, several people in my professional network encouraged me to share my experiences with others as a mentor, since my backgrounds below are unique yet relevant enough to those who are seeking growth or new career opportunities in tech:
- Took multiple roles between engineering, science, and business;
- Served different scales of business at start-up, Big Tech, and as an independent;
- Worked globally (both physically and remotely) on diverse verticals such as e-commerce, gaming, online media, and supply chain.
Following the advice, I registered with a free online mentoring platform and volunteered for dozens of mentees globally. Until then, I didn't realize my own "trivial" experiences could be someone's life-changing insights. The two-way relationship also inspired me tremendously by sharing a moment in life with the passionate mentees. It was simply rewarding, intangibly, and that's why I decided to invest more in mentoring.
How did you get your career start?
When I graduated from my master's program, I was anxious about whether I was on the right path or not. Did I choose a good company for my first career? Which tech stack should I focus more on, to be valuable in the rapidly growing industry? How can I efficiently acquire new knowledge and skills from now on? I overanalyzed the future, got overwhelmed, lost priorities and focus, and got stuck, even before starting my first job.
Around that time, I met with my mentor from an internship program I participated in a while back. After listening to all my emotional struggles, he said "Listen, our specialty comes only from experience." The point was that we can only learn from experiences in a true sense. Hence, one should focus on deepening and diversifying experiences gained from opportunities ahead of them, rather than being overly strategic.
It is true that, even with many uncertainties in our future, what we have experienced hands-on with our five senses must remain a tangible asset throughout our career. Consequently, the senior person's simple message cleared my sight. Since then, I have built my unique career without relying too much on unforeseeable future or extrinsic motivations.
What do mentees usually come to you for?
The general expectation for my mentorship is that mentees drive the relationship by setting specific goals and deciding how to use me. Accordingly, I guide them in the desired direction by sharing my experiences, providing resources, and being an accountability partner. Given my background, career transition to full-stack or machine learning engineering and portfolio development in these areas are the most common objectives among my mentees.
Since it will be a professional relationship that needs a big commitment from both sides, I wouldn't accept any abstract request. To be more precise, I always ask prospective mentees the following questions to ensure a good match:
- Why do you think I can be your mentor among others?
- What are your tangible goals in the first couple of months?
- How can I help you to get there?
- How do you define the end of this mentorship?
Having an exit strategy advance is particularly crucial for mentorship. Real life is mostly qualitative, and there is always room for improvement. So, ambiguous goals can lead us to never-ending efforts without a sense of accomplishment, which is unhealthy and hinders us from making meaningful progress. Often, done is better than perfect.
What's been your favourite mentorship success story so far?
Whenever my mentee transforms their ambitious goal into a concrete action plan and takes a tangible first step, I consider it a great success.
For example, when I had a mentee from an emerging country, he wanted to learn frontend coding and become a full-stack developer. However, he wasn't sure where to begin due to the lack of accessible educational opportunities, and local developer communities. After our mentorship session, we identified gaps between his current skills and what's needed to be an established full-stack developer. He eventually started taking a free online course we discovered to fill the gap most effectively.
Meanwhile, another mentee from North America was working on their portfolio project with a vague objective. First, we had a series of mentoring sessions to rethink the role of portfolio work, by exploring its implications for career development and professional growth. We then reworked together on technical design and coding tasks. As a result, the mentee has built the portfolio steadily and gained the confidence to apply for a new job.
I focus more on the mentee's long-lasting, sustainable growth. Hence, foundational exercises are more valuable than immediate results such as landing a specific job.
What are you getting out of being a mentor?
Being an online mentor allowed me to engage with diverse people across continents, and every one of them helped me objectively look back on my journey so far. The more I mentor people in need, the more I realize how privileged and fortunate my situation has been, and the deeper I become concerned about the downside of today's tech industry - the skewed, exploitative power dynamics between the rich and the rest; I'm always shocked by the mentee's inaccessibility to digital skills, knowledge, and job opportunities in the information age, and it is a systemic issue our capitalist society embodies.
Knowing the existence of such gaps in our world, I couldn't stop seeking opportunities outside privileged occupations in wealthy nations. Eventually, I shifted my career focus to philanthropy to face reality and work more closely with individuals urgently struggling with their vulnerability. For instance, I recently completed a one-year assignment as a Canadian international volunteer in Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world in southeast Africa, and "mentored" its socio-economically marginalized population as an ICT Advisor.
It should be noted that the flexibility of online mentorship came in handy while on the assignment in Africa; I could easily continue my mentorship on MentorCruise from Africa, with a subtle adjustment in time difference with the mentees and heads-up on potential instability in internet connectivity or a power supply. Therefore, regardless of where I will be next, I'm excited about continuously working with diverse mentees across the globe and sharing our beautiful journeys in life.