Everyone says "get a mentor" like they're handed out at the door. I don't have anyone senior in my immediate circle, and DMing a stranger with "will you mentor me" feels like proposing marriage on a first date.
For those of you who have a mentor now — how did that relationship actually start? Was it a formal thing, or did it just kind of happen out of working together on something?
Seconding the "don't make it formal" thing. Communities like this one, open-source maintainers, people whose blog posts you actually like — reply thoughtfully, show up consistently, be useful, and the relationship kind of forms on its own. The best mentorship I ever got was completely accidental.
Every mentor I've had, I never once used the word "mentor." It always started with one specific ask — "could I grab 15 minutes on how you approached X?" — and just kept going from there. The "will you be my mentor" framing drops a huge open-ended obligation on someone. Ask for one small concrete thing instead.
