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Sometimes I feel like my job is just babysitting my coworkers. I need to find a way to teach them how to think for themselves.

I'm not a senior dev but I am the one my coworkers turn to for help. I like helping (even if it's annoying some times), so I'm thinking about embracing the mentor role in my team. My plan for now is to stop giving the answers right away (which I usually do to get back to my work) and instead try to guide my coworkers into figuring out the issue themselves. This will take more of my time of course and will require I practice my patience in a possibly stressful environment (depending on how close deadlines are), but I'm hoping that it'll produce better coworkers (one can dream, at least).

Do any of you know of any good reading resources about mentoring or becoming a mentor, specifically in tech/development?

Comments
  • 6
    Most of humanity requires babysitting sadly.. the only difference between most of humanity and your coworkers is that your coworkers are actually getting it. And that's actually the main reason why I got this alcohol addiction. Fuck this society and its mindless population called humans.

    HUMANS, THINK FOR YOURSELF, HOW HARD CAN IT BE?!!
  • 1
    Oh and as for resources.. none sadly. If they can't look up information for themselves, they're already lost. Providing keywords that they can use to look for the solution themselves helps sometimes, but not always.
  • 3
    Interested in that topic also. I thought about doing an instructor training while I was on my former job, maybe that's part of a solution.

    Your approach is good though, it'll take time, but if you keep it up you can then continue to give them the resources where to find help: They'll start to look for themselves sooner or later. Also, regularly ask them questions to get an insight on how they're doing in terms of problem solving.

    In principle when looking into getting adults to think for themselves or mentoring you're also somewhat looking into the topic of "lifelong learning" here, maybe there are more general resources that can help you out.
  • 2
    Great topic, I’m curious about this as well - I definitely like your approach, even if it takes longer to fix the problem.

    To add on to this, I’m wondering how you guys deal with devs not accomplishing tasks? Everything is in Jira with target dates, I understand that there is a lot of work and not everything can be completed but an update or any information at all would help. How have you guys handled prioritizing tasks to get the most out of your team and so you don’t have to be the one constantly asking when things will be finished?
  • 0
    @jsmooth17 well, we don't have any actual process for that.

    First, we are a small team, so it's easy to know what a given person is doing and what is the progress. Which means we don't use tools like Jira; GitHub issues are enough.

    Second, our deadlines are a bit fluid. It's fine for us to say "I won't be done on time", as long as we give that info to the PM with enough time to inform clients. The idea here is that it's better to warn the client beforehand than on the delivery day.

    This works for us (most times), but it certainly doesn't work for all teams and we'll have to rethink all this if the team grows.
  • 1
    Hmm, I'm in the same situation, i think i do not insult them enough so they get it. Those retard that can't even use a search engine and ask for help... deserve to get inserted a barbed wire in the dickhole
  • 1
    Can't edit comment, here's the end :

    I mean, I like to help, i even gave course in some university, but cmon, read, practice and fucking learn. You.. ppl !

    Post scriptum : i need to read previous comments soberly
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