1:1 CAREER MENTORING FOR SOFTWARE ENGINEERS
My mentor at Amazon saved my ass.
And ever since, I try to have at least two mentors at all times.
Two people I talk to every 10 to 15 days, whether I need help or not.
Something always comes up.
Do you want to hear the story of how my mentor saved my ass at Amazon?
In a minute.
FIRST, THE FRAMEWORK
How I choose my mentors.
As I said, I always try to have two active mentoring relationships.
But they do not last forever. Every now and then I need to look for new ones, and that process matters a lot.
That is why I developed this framework.
Two mentors: one technical, one manager.
I want help and feedback from both points of view.
The longer they have been at the company, the better.
Every company and business has its own secrets, and those take time to understand.
From another team or organization.
Someone on your own team probably has the same biases you do. Their incentives may even conflict with yours.
One or two levels above me.
They have recently walked the path I am walking now. More than two levels above is usually too far away.
Is this something you actually want?
You still have two wishes left.
Now let us get into the story of how my managerentor saved my ass.
My manager and I were working on my promotion to Senior Engineer when, after a performance review cycle, he told me I had received a low rating.
We needed to fix it to avoid bigger problems.
PIP? Fired?
I could not believe it.
How was it possible that we were working on my promotion and I had received a low rating?
Well, this is where those secrets I mentioned before come in.
My manager was helping me with what he could see.
My mentor saw the part of the system we were missing.
As soon as I told him the story and we analyzed the situation in detail, he quickly told me what I needed to do over the next six months to fix it and keep working toward the promotion.
The problem was not my performance.
I was doing good work. My team had delivered good projects, on time and properly.
The problem was the rules of the game.
I had closed 0 planning points.
As in any company of a certain size, employee performance is measured numerically to make it as objective as possible.
Those metrics are not always public.
You know how this works. The moment the team knows a specific metric is being measured, some people immediately start playing with it.
In this case, the metric was the number of planning points each engineer closed during a given period.
I had closed 0.
Not because I was doing nothing, but because I spent my time making sure tasks had no uncertainty and no hidden risk.
I reviewed every important task in detail and proposed the solution. I unblocked dependencies. I implemented ways to reduce risk. Whatever was needed at the time.
The idea was that the rest of the team could fly through implementation.
But none of that was measured in planning points.
The work mattered. I had made it invisible.
The solution was not to stop doing that work.
I still believe that work is important.
The solution was to assign those famous planning points to the efforts I was already doing.
And that was it.
In the next performance review, my rating moved to the opposite end of the scale, and I could keep working on the promotion.
That was not the only time.
That is just one of many examples where one of my mentors has been key in my career.
I remember others who helped me write better, simplify a system, or pay attention to high-visibility initiatives that were starting inside the company so I could take advantage of them.
But careful. This is not just me.
Marcus Aurelius had Rusticus.
Oprah had Maya Angelou.
Warren Buffett had Benjamin Graham.
Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, and Sundar Pichai had Bill Campbell.
So no, mentorship is not remedial.
It is how serious people avoid learning every lesson the expensive way.
So what are you waiting for?
Go find yourself a mentor.
Remember to look for:
- Someone with your skill set, and someone with your manager’s skill set.
- As many years of experience as possible.
- External, so they do not share your same biases or have a conflict of interest.
- At your same level, or one or two levels above you if possible.
Is this something you actually want?
Bring the messy context. We will turn it into a concrete next step.
FAQ
Before you book.
Is this only for people who want to work at FAANG?
No.
FAANG is one possible destination. It is not the whole point.
This is for software engineers who want to make better career decisions, understand what is being evaluated around them, and stop guessing what matters.
Is this a coaching session or a mentoring session?
Mentoring.
I am not here to give you generic productivity advice or motivational quotes.
You bring the context. I help you understand what is probably happening, what matters, what does not, and what I would do next if I were in your position.
What happens during the session?
We look at your situation in detail.
Your goal. Your current role. Your constraints. The decision you are trying to make. The feedback you are getting. The signals you may be missing.
Then we turn that into concrete next steps.
Do I need to prepare anything before the session?
Yes, but not much.
Bring the messy context. Performance feedback. Interview timelines. Promotion documents. Manager comments. Career doubts. A decision you keep postponing.
The better the context, the better the session.
Can you guarantee I will get promoted or hired?
No.
And anyone who guarantees that is selling fantasy.
What I can do is help you understand the system better, avoid obvious mistakes, and build a plan that gives you a much better shot.
You still have to do the work.
Is this confidential?
Yes.
Anything you share in the session stays between us.
I may use anonymized patterns in future content, but never names, companies, salaries, roles, documents, or identifying details.
What if I already have a manager or mentor at work?
Good. Keep them.
But internal mentors have limitations.
They may share the same blind spots. They may be inside the same political system. They may not be able to say everything directly. They may have incentives that are not fully aligned with yours.
An external mentor gives you a different angle.
That is the point.
How do I know if this is worth it for me?
If you already know exactly what to do next, probably do not book.
If you are guessing, delaying, overthinking, preparing randomly, or trying to decode vague feedback from people around you, a session can save you a lot of wasted effort.
The goal is simple: you leave with more clarity than you came in with.