Why is mentorship important in a DevOps career and how does it work?

Quick answer: mentorship in DevOps works best as guided discovery, not answer-giving — a mentor listens to understand what actually motivates the person they're helping, then steers them toward finding their own answer rather than handing it over, because lessons learned by working through a mistake stick better than ones just told to you.

Mentorship — what's it really about? Well, if you're an old fart like me — I'm over 50 now — I want to help you. I don't care how old you are, age is just a number, but if you're starting out in something, I want to help you progress, and the best way I can do that is by listening to you. I want to understand what drives you, what motivates you, and as a mentor I need to understand that so I can help you and steer you the best possible way.

Being a mentor is about using your life experience, listening to what somebody else needs help with, and then giving them gentle guidance so they can find the answers themselves. We don't want to just tell them the answers — not only would that be too easy, but if you get stuff easily it can be forgotten again or taken for granted. It needs to be worked at, and by using our experience we can create situations where the person we're mentoring can learn and find out the best way. It's okay to make mistakes — that's the best way of learning — but with a mentor you can make fewer of them.

So let's grow together.