I've always had a mentor.

At this very moment, we're a pretty awesome team at Hashnode and I consider all my colleagues my mentors and try to pick up as much as I can from them. I also try to pass along whatever I know to them as well, but I would say that the former is more dominant than the later.

At my first job, I had two mentors. They taught me the basics of writing clean code.

At my second job, I probably had the best mentors I could've asked for. Tough love at its very best. The code reviews were rather aggressive to the extent that you would want to cry yourself to sleep in the night, but those reviews really made me a better programmer. If you've seen the movie Whiplash, you would know this line.

There are no two words in the English language more harmful than "good job".

That's how we rolled there.

I really want a mentor for startup. Any one interested ?

It's true for any other field as well.

Gain knowledge from experienced people

You don't have to take the face value of it, and apply your own learnings on top of theirs. It really breaks your bubble to listen to people who've had similar journeys.

Practice your learnings. Get newer learnings

When you explain someone why you did something, it kind of internalises within you too. You question why do you something is still the right approach. As we grow older, we tend to overlook many of the small new things which affect our work positively and become stagnant in our progress. Telling someone to go a particular direction keeps you on the edge too.

I've always preferred to think of it more like being a Sith lord... the master and apprentice.

Joking aside, my best habits came from early teachers who took the time to go one on one with me. Checking over my shoulder, pointing me the right direction -- this is something that NORMAL educators and classwork never covered the four decades or so ago when I was learning, and if anything is even more missing in today's system of doing things.

I've taken on many the "apprentice" -- people who I saw what they were doing, saw potential, and decided to take them under my wing; both in the office-space and online.

More than once I've had them come back as the master and teach me things... BEING a mentor can be as much of a learning experience as quite often other people have problems you would never have or even think to come up with a solution for. That's why "randomly helping strangers" on forums can be as good a learning experience as it is helpful for the poor sod stuck on something "simple".

Bottom line to me -- even after 40 years of coding -- remains learn what you can from who you can, and pass it on.

Never really had a mentor... definitely not related to the fact that I barely survived most of my classes / didn't work with anyone particularly senior to me at my last startup. But I feel kind of good thanks to this question, cause I realized I'm a bit of a mentor for several kids who asked me for a lot of advice when I was TAing, and an online friend and a few IRL ones who are just one or two steps behind me gives me a lot of opportunities to.... uhh.... ment people.

Does complaining about other peoples code count ? ... if so I'm a mentor ;P and a mentee since others are complaining about my code as well.... :)

I don't have one, but I would like one. But I still don't feel like I'm worth of a mentor. #impostersyndrome

I love helping people and I got a lot of my friends into programming and design and some of them now have careers because of my help.

Also, I give a lot of advices to people through internet. :)

When I decide to have a mentor I will approach some fellow developer who is my idol (superstar :D) over a Twitter or E-mail and just be honest with them.

I like the idea and is why these Masterminds are getting so popular. Exactly what most offer but you pay for it.

I really want a mentor and a mentee. :(