Ask HN: Mentor Saturday

Two questions: 1) If you ever considered getting a mentor(or being a mentor), and you did find a mentor(or a mentee), how did you do it? HN? other web forum? Work? Friends? 2) If you ever considered getting a mentor(or being a mentor), but you didn't find mentor(or a mentee), what stopped you?

Perfect timing. I'm considering starting a mentorship group in NYC for people who are underrepresented in the tech community.

Question: Do you guys agree that for the mentorship process to work both people need to live at least nearby, to be able to meet in person one a month at least?

In the past I asked for someone who is in US to act as a mentor, and he agreed, but after a while it died down because exchanging emails and a call once in a while wasn't enough to solidify the bound and it wasn't work as intended.

Thoughts?

Is there no website where you can join as a mentor or a student and then it gives you a list of who you're looking for, perhaps sorted by distance?

It could cover anything, not just programming or startup culture.

I'm sure I've seen one before?

I've never really been involved in 'formal' mentoring since my first employer a long long time ago.

I try to meet up with young people interested in HFT for coffee or beer if/when they come through Chicago and I've really found the experience profoundly useful to me thus far.

Generally, this has just been facilitated by random LinkedIn messages by bold students from one of my almas, but I imagine if I was less of a slacker, I could more proactively be useful to people with an interest.

I'm a developer who struggles with interaction design.

If anyone is good at designing intuitive user interfaces, I would like some mentorship.

I know this request is better suited to Designer News, but I'll try here first.

Had awesome experience with Codementor (https://www.codementor.io/) recently, highly recommended for anyone looking for help or helping others.

I am looking for entrepreneurial mentorship - would be great if you are in Sydney.

I'm graduating soon and feel lost. Some mentorship and or career advice would help a lot. I'm in Europe.

I have always thought a mentor-mentee relationship is essential for growth, either personal or professional. Even though I am doing things that I want to professionally (working for an early stage startup) I feel at times lost, scared and completely clueless. Being an Indian living in Nebraska it is almost impossible to find someone who can actually understand my concerns, shares my values and provide relevant help.

I'm a designer who's hoping to get better at engineering. I already know languages and can make stuff with it. [0] However, I have found that especially on bigger projects, the main hurdle becomes my own architecture, or less-than-perfect engineering hampering future development. I want to improve on that.

In reciprocity I can offer design mentorship, in interaction design, mobile and desktop user interfaces, user experience design and user testing.

[0] http://www.getaether.net

Machine learning focused CS undergrad in Austin, TX - would love to talk to a data scientist in the industry for 30 mins.

I sense there is a large disconnect between ML research at university and application of ML in industry. I'm most curious how teams work at Netflix, Palantir, etc (at that scale and company size). I perpetually feel the impostor syndrome in this space (even though I performed very well in CS course work and research). If you can give me a glimpse of data science at your company, I would be grateful!

jayshahtx[at]gmail.com

I'm a recent grad with my MS in CS. I mostly focus on information security and cryptography. I want to know everything about the two subjects.

I'm about to start working at a SaaS startup security company.

Hey Guys, I am a coder slash entrepreneur, who is trying something different this time with "Helping Faceless". We are trying to find missing children in india with technology but I am feeling absolutely lost on how figure out a scalable model(business vise). Would love to have a mentor :

Url :www.helpingfaceless.com Email : community-manager at helpingfaceless.com

I'm a cs student in Europe (France), and I'm still struggling to find my road.

I have competence in IA, Machine Learning, Python, JS (node, express, meteor), Angular but also Design (mockup, wireframe, bootstrap, css).

I don't see myself as a front-end engineer, nor a back-end engineer, nor data science man.

So, I'm a full-stack engineer but without a deep knowledge in anything. I have a hard time to feel confident enough to work for someone else, as they might realize that I am an impostor (I know about the syndrome, but how can you be sure not be one ?).

I would really like to have a mentor that could show me where I can evaluate myself and where I should make progress.

Thanks !

benderville[at]gmail.com

I am a developer who recently got bugged by Audio processing / Digital Signal Processing. Putting it to use I was able to make a small whistle detection program[1]. I need to know how can I improve this program or better say, a primer on advance aspects of Audio analysis.

[1]: http://shubhamjain.github.io/whistlerr/

This is a little different: I'm looking for a mentor who has worked in the behavioral science / psychology field. I used to be a startup founder and software developer, but now I'm looking to combine technology with behavioral science. Also happy to chat with others who are interested. mark[at]markbao.com

I am running a small software services business. I really need a mentor a)- who can help me improve our services business b)- help me venture into product development. All help is appreciated.

Thanks. mwyounas@gmail.com

I suggest using Quora to get thoughtful answers to startup questions. You can also ask anonymously if preferred.

I’m a final year CS student who is looking for some career advice from experience developers. I've worked with Java, C#(asp.net) and Ruby on Rails on various college level projects and looking for product/service based company in India.

I would really like to have a mentor who can help me evaluate myself and guide me through various career choices.

You can find me on twitter: https://twitter.com/iamrahulroy Or contact me through email: techniciablog[at] gmail dot com

Thanks,

- Rahul

If you're an entrepreneur with a web/mobile startup that's got some traction and you're not sure how to go about forming a business, scaling infrastructure, monetizing, etc. feel free to reach out to me. As time permits I'm happy to help mentor or advise you so you can build a good business without making some of the mistakes a lot of us did when we didn't have that advice. It doesn't matter where you're based, as long as you've got a web/mobile product or service that's got some traction.

We are building a product in India. We are currently working on an app that we feel will change citizen's alienation with the administration and their representatives, and the latter's perceived apathy towards the former. We are also conceptually building a framework that attempts to resolve the internet penetration vs telecom penetration anomaly in this country.

If anyone is interested in the what we're doing, or can offer to answer our stupid questions occasionally (regarding dev, growth, strategy, or life and its mysteries) drop us a line at team at merinagari dot in

We’re a couple months away from launching a flipping sweet new product, and despite a personal background in UI/UX, marketing & PR I need to cultivate a better mentor network to make this a smooth launch. Frankly, I need someone I can trust to validate the proper way of doing things, since as an intentionally bootstrapped venture I keep making allowances for the cheap & easy way of progressing. I just want to get better at this and give the product the launch it deserves.

Some of the specific challenges:

- Project managing a new product with a remote team member

- Achieving great UX with a limited budget

- How to capitalize on a successful launch & build relationships in the SF tech community

We just submitted our first accelerator application to Angelpad, which would be nice. Email in profile.