Mentor new developers through their first real project
Branchout mentors are people working in the industry who volunteer to answer questions, review code and explain how teams actually work. You decide how much time you give, and when.
What mentors do
Small, specific help that unblocks people.
Answer questions
Students work through their track on their own. When they are properly stuck, a good question to a mentor saves them days.
Review code
A few thoughtful comments on a pull request teach more than another tutorial: naming, structure, testing, trade-offs.
Share how teams work
Planning, code review, on-call and shipping on a deadline: the parts of the job that are hard to learn alone.
Who we’re looking for
Experience and patience matter more than seniority.
- You work, or have recently worked, in one of the areas our tracks cover: Full-Stack Web, AI & Machine Learning, Mobile Development, DevOps & Infrastructure, Frontend Engineering, Data Engineering.
- You can explain things clearly in writing, because most questions arrive as messages.
- You’re comfortable saying “I don’t know, but here’s how I’d find out.”
- You want students to succeed on their own terms, not to do the work for them.
What mentoring involves, and what it doesn’t
- Voluntary and unpaid. You give your time as a volunteer, and you can step back at any point.
- No minimum hours. Help with one question a month or one review a week, whatever fits.
- Guidance, not supervision. Mentoring is educational support. You are not managing anyone, and students are not working for you.
- No outcome promises. You are not responsible for anyone getting a job, and you should never promise one.
How to become a mentor
Tell us about yourself
Use the contact form: what you work on, and which tracks you could help with.
We get back to you
We’ll reply with next steps and answer any questions about how mentoring works.
Start small
Begin with a few questions or a single code review, and do more only if you enjoy it.
Share what you know
Mentoring on Branchout is flexible, voluntary and genuinely useful to the people you help.
Mentor
Nice catch. Could you add a test for a capitalised search, so this can’t quietly come back?