Mentorship
On this page 9 topics
Overview
Topics
- Delegation
- code review coaching
- design feedback
Learn first
3 h of practice (estimate)
Learning outcomes
- Delegate work at the right size for growth, with clear outcomes and support.
- Coach through code and design review rather than rewrite.
- Give feedback on design thinking, not only on code.
- Track a mentee's growth against level expectations.
Lessons
Lab and exercises
Lab
SRC-020-LAB1 · Mentor a Mid learner
Outcomes: 1–4 · Time: ~3 h of your own work plus the four-week mentoring Mentor a Level 3 learner through one capstone component over four weeks: agreement, delegation brief, coaching reviews, design feedback, and a growth plan. Keep a short log of sessions and decisions. Acceptance: mentee feedback and their delivered result.
Exercises (assessment: mentee feedback plus reflection)
| ID | Outcome | Task |
|---|---|---|
| SRC-020-EX01 | 1 | Write a delegation brief for a mentee to add a retry policy to a payment client: outcome, boundaries, check-ins. |
| SRC-020-EX02 | 2 | Rewrite five blunt or fix-it review comments as coaching comments, labeled required or suggestion. |
| SRC-020-EX03 | 3 | Review a short design note with a missing failure-mode section; write design feedback on thinking habits. |
| SRC-020-EX04 | 4 | Write a growth plan with two focus areas against level expectations, including evidence and a stretch task. |
| SRC-020-EX05 | 1 | Case: the mentee is stuck and the deadline is near. List what you may do without taking over. |
| SRC-020-EX06 | 3 | Case: feedback so far has been only praise. Write a balanced feedback message on one design. |
Show solutions
- EX01 Outcome: payment calls survive transient failure without duplicate charges; boundaries: owns the policy values, must ask before changing the idempotency scheme; check-ins weekly; review with tests.
- EX02 For example: "What happens if two threads reach this?" (suggest) and "This risks double charge; see the idempotency principle" (required with reasoning).
- EX03 Praise specific strengths, then note the habit: moving to solutions before listing failure modes; offer a checklist and ask the author to extend it.
- EX04 Focus: design trade-offs and operability; evidence: decisions documented; stretch: lead a small design review; review date set.
- EX05 Ask questions to unblock, share a similar example, pair for an hour on the hard concept, reduce scope; avoid doing it for them.
- EX06 State a specific strength, then one concrete growth area with an example and a suggested next step.
- Outcome 2 is also covered by the lab log and Q04-Q05.
Workplace evidence: an engineer you mentored and how their scope grew.
Quiz
Outcomes: O1 delegation · O2 coaching through reviews · O3 design feedback · O4 growth tracking.
A self-check for you: nothing is graded, saved or sent anywhere. Choose an answer, then check it. You can try again as often as you like.
Practical part
Mentee feedback plus a written reflection (SRC-020 assessment) and the delivered component from SRC-020-LAB1. Pass: at least 8/10 on the quiz, mentee feedback that shows growth, and a reflection naming what you would do differently.
Common mistakes
Taking over the hard parts; feedback that is only praise or only criticism.
Assessment
Mentee feedback plus reflection.
Workplace evidence
An engineer you mentored and how their scope grew.
Career relevance
Mentoring senior peers (SRB-018) and mentoring at scale (STF-015).