Episode 319: Mentoring Developers Beyond the Code With Tim Schilling
The Real Python Podcast
What’s it take to be a mentor to developers? Where in an engineer’s career can a mentor make an impact? This week we speak with Tim Schilling, Django Steering Council member and Djangonaut Space administrator, about mentoring Python developers.
Tim shares his open-source background, his involvement in the Django community, and where mentoring shaped his own career. He also walks us through why he shifted the focus of his blog, Better Simple, to begin offering one-on-one mentorship.
We dive into what makes a good mentor, the questions developers ask that go beyond Python syntax, and why humility is essential on both sides of the relationship. Tim talks about how writing and blogging helps to work through ideas and career struggles. He also shares several of the projects and events he’s excited about that are happening in the Django community.
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Topics:
- 00:00:00 – Introduction
- 00:02:25 – How did you get involved in open source?
- 00:05:22 – What is Djangonaut Space?
- 00:09:30 – Django Commons and filling the void of JazzBand ending
- 00:11:12 – Where did you start mentoring?
- 00:13:26 – Mentoring in a workplace
- 00:16:35 – Starting to mentor as a business
- 00:18:21 – What skills do you need to be a mentor?
- 00:23:18 – What skills should a mentee bring?
- 00:25:53 – What gaps can mentoring help fill?
- 00:30:55 – Hesitation in asking for help
- 00:33:12 – Spotlight: Mentor AI
- 00:34:57 – Finding where people need help & blogging as troubleshooting
- 00:40:13 – How to get involved in mentoring
- 00:44:56 – What has changed about mentoring with advent of LLMs?
- 00:51:26 – What are you excited about in the world of Python?
- 01:02:05 – What do you want to learn next?
- 01:06:43 – How can people follow your work online?
- 01:07:37 – Thanks and goodbye
Show Links:
- Django Mentorship for Software Engineers - Better Simple
- Djangonaut Space - A contributor mentorship program for Django/Python that’s just started its 7th session.
- Django Commons - A community run organization to support community-maintained Django & packages.
- Jazzband - Projects
- Django on the Med - An in-person sprint only event for Django contributors to meet up and collaborate that just had its second iteration.
- Django - New features repo - How Django is now handling new feature ideas.
- Django Probe - How the community can communicate how they use Django so maintainers can make better decisions about the framework.
- How Bloomberg’s engineers built a culture of knowledge sharing - Stack Overflow
- The Manager’s Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change- Amazon
- The Psychology of Software Teams: Cat Hicks - Amazon
- django-debug-toolbar: Configurable panels to display debug info about the current request/response.
- Online Django Events and Workshops · Better Simple
- Tim Schilling (@CodenameTim@mastodon.social) - Fosstodon
- Django - Discord
- Tim Schilling - LinkedIn
- Tim Schilling (@CodenameTim) / X
- @codenametim.bsky.social — Bluesky
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