| published by | Tim Schilling |
|---|---|
| in blog | Better Simple |
| original entry | Who’s helping you level up as a Django developer? |
In February, I officially started accepting clients for a Django mentoring business. If you, your colleagues, friends, or company are wanting help in being a better Django developer or software engineer, please reach out!
I’m thankful to already have multiple clients. Each wanting to focus on something slightly different.
If you think you may benefit from something like this, let’s meet! If you’re curious, but would like to know more about me, you can read more on the about page. Or if you know someone who could benefit from this, I’d appreciate you passing my name along.
You probably do. It’s likely your spouse, partner, family, and close friends. The trouble is that closeness may get in the way of honest, objective discussion.
Sometimes, it’s better to have a person outside your social circles to discuss things. A person you can rely on for feedback that’s purely intended to help you improve. I’m entirely focused on understanding your situation, your goals, and your context to help you take the next steps to be better.
Ideally, this is something your team lead or manager at your job would provide. However, they may have too much on their plate to dedicate extra time to you personally. They may also not be interested or not have experience in the area you intend to grow in. There’s also the challenge that the context of your relationship is fixed around a company. If you are eager to learn a new language, it can be challenging for them to directly tell you to do it on your own time.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t pursue mentorship from your company. You absolutely should. But if you find it’s not meeting your expectations, consider reaching out to me.
It would start with a meeting where we get to know each other and understand your goals. These goals may be personal, career-related, educational, or technical. We’ll work to identify what your longer-term goals are, about 3-5 years out, then work that backwards. We’ll identify what you’re trying to accomplish in the next year, then decide what can be done in the next month to help you along that path. Likewise, we’ll define what success looks like so that way you’ll have something to look back at when assessing if I’m being helpful or not.
Beyond that, our meetings will be dictated by you and what you’re working on. If you want to discuss a programming methodology, I can recommend blogs, talks, and books for you to get started, and then we can work through your questions. If you’re new to Django and want to feel more confident, we can pair program on a project of yours. Or if you have half-baked thoughts, you can share them with me, and I can help you refine them into fully baked ideas.
It would make sense to be confused or even skeptical of this service. I’m not sure about you, but I’ve always thought of mentorship as something that was given for free. Now here I am, asking you to pay me for it. Yeah, that’s a bit weird.
If you’d really like to avoid paying for it, here’s how you can patch together mentorship from various sources.
If you’re not getting the mentorship you want, this is worth considering. It’s an inexpensive way to invest in your future. The skills and knowledge you learn will stick with you.
There’s little risk. You pay at the end of the month, and only if you felt you got value. You can find the current plans offered on the mentoring page.
My last justification for why this is a good idea for you is that I care about this. It’s hard to find people who are passionate about the same things as you. Finding a person who wants to help you be a better Django developer and software engineer and is willing to work with you on your own terms is a challenge.
If you’ve been looking for that person, I’d like to be them. Let’s talk.