Developers mentoring other developers: practices I've seen work well

Mentorship accelerates growth; structured mentorship-whether informal code reviews, onboarding buddies, or formal cadences-delivers measurable skill gains for both parties. At Uber the author observed that every senior engineer had a mentor, making mentorship an expectation tied to engineering competencies. The article breaks mentorship into three patterns. Onboarding buddies give new hires a short-term guide to codebases and processes, typically lasting a month or two. Informal mentorship happens constantly in code reviews, planning meetings, and daily collaboration. Formal mentorship adds a kickoff meeting, agreed cadence, clear goals, and progress checks, which the author found speeds up junior growth and even gives senior engineers fresh perspectives. Practical tactics include preparing a topic list for the kickoff, setting a regular half-hour cadence, using shared docs to track action items, and focusing on coaching rather than providing answers. The author also stresses that mentors should use their networks, give supportive feedback, and be willing to say no, while mentees must come prepared and act on advice. These practices help teams scale talent, improve communication, and maintain morale, especially in remote settings.