One question I have repeatedly gotten from the community is: “can I help mentor the Fractal Tech students?”
The answer is YES! You can signup here.
Once you sign up, we will interview you and match you with a student who we think you could help. Your goal is to help them accomplish their goals.
Fractal is well-positioned to create the best mentorship program (read: tech mafia?) in the city. Here’s why we think so:
- The students actually care and put in the work
- students work from Fractal Tech 6 days per week. your advice will shape the quality and velocity of hundreds of hours of focused work per month.
- We will build a league of good mentors
- we will all be learning from each other and getting better, as a network. this is a way to dramatically level up our leadership skills, with no risk.
- Talent density
- talent attracts talent. our program has a 100% placement rate, and our students are often quick to be promoted. we get more students every semester, and as the network grows, so too will the talent density. who knows, the student you mentor might be co-founding with you one day!
- We could be legendary
- wouldn’t it be cool if people told stories of “back in the day, at Fractal Tech”? I think an effective mentorship program would make those stories far more likely.
So How Does It Work?
Just help them accomplish their goals!
Students often have simple goals, most frequently these are:
1. get a job/internship (90%)
2. get more customers for their startup (10%)
Help them in whatever way you think is most effective.
Be honest with them.
Support and unblock their progress.
If you don’t know how, I have some suggestions for you:
How can we support and unblock students?
Students primarily need two types of help:
- High-level Career Help (eg. Coaching, Strategy, Outlook, Values, Principles, Truth-telling, Sense-making, Emotional Support…)
- Technical Help (interviewing, take homes, system design, code review, tacit knowledge)
We have designed a few template exercises in each category, so you have a natural starting point
we are currently building these exercises with our BETA mentors. If you sign up now, I will work with you and your student to make sure you have great exercise choices.
What if it doesn’t work out? Can I switch students?
Yes. I will match you with a student that I think fits your personality and professional background. If somehow the match ends up being anything less than very exciting and fun, just talk to me, and I’ll orchestrate a switch and an excuse for the change :)
The (Beta) Program.
The mentorship program starts with 4 scheduled meetings for help & advice. We plan all 4 intro sessions in advance when we match, so you and the student know when you’ll see each other.
They don’t necessarily need to be at the same time every week, or even once weekly, though I think roughly once or twice weekly is a good pace.
Meeting 1 | intro, high-level help (Q&A), and mentorship plan |
[mentorship plan] | future weeks are subject to changes you think would benefit the student most, this is just a sensible default! |
Meeting 2 | take-home review + technical interview, feedback |
Meeting 3 | high-level help (advice, curated resources, canon) |
Meeting 4 | code review + pair programming |
[Meetings 5+] | hopefully you built up a good relationship. You can continue meeting as much as you like, or just see each other around Fractal Tech. Remember to offer your help for any questions they have in the future :) |
How can I be a world-class mentor?
I love the ambition! I have advice, here are some of my favorite guides on mentorship and coaching:
TODO: pardon the construction, we are working on collecting our resources
TODO: