Just over a year ago now, I did this thing I called “mobile mentoring”. If you were under-indexed in tech and worked on mobile I would do a call with you about anything you wanted.
I spoke to maybe… ten people? Most of them – in the way of mentoring – I never heard from again. I have no idea if our conversation helped them, or if it didn’t.
One person followed up, though. I gave him a mock interview and an introduction. He turned those small pieces of help into his first (awesome) job as a software engineer.
It’s a privilege to help someone like that. To turn around and give someone a couple of small things – that I was lucky enough to get myself earlier in my career – and see it make a difference. He would have succeeded without my help, I have no doubt about that. Hopefully, I made it a little faster, a little easier. Hopefully, one day he’ll pay it forward to someone else.
I am jaded on the value of mentoring. But that interaction, that story, makes me a little more hopeful (as did this one).
So I’m opening this up again. If you’re under-indexed* in tech and work in mobile, I’ll do a call with you about anything you want. I’m limiting this to 2 a month, at 45 minutes. Email ariel@accidentallyincode.com and tell her a little bit about who you are and what you would like to talk about, and some general times that work for you.
If these criteria do not apply to you, include a receipt showing you made a donation (of at least 100 USD) to BlackGirlsCode and you can buy your way in.
* under-indexed: a member of a group that has been historically under-represented in tech. I like this phrasing because it positions it as people not being found, rather than not showing up, HT to my good friend @duretti for teaching it to me.