BenPorter-Mentor-ReachOut.md

Mentor

• Name of contact

  • The mentors I reached out to are Ireina Krammer and Dano Blanchard. This was a very soft cold outreach as they are both developers at companies I use to work for.

• Date of contact

  • 08/21/2017

  • I heard back form Ireina within a few days and she has been a wonderful reasource doing screen shares with me to help on projects and just generally encourageing me when I am feeling lost.

  • I had to do further follow up to get ahold of Dano and once I did he seemed very excited to help but has not been very responsive since. This is fine as I know he is busy and Ireina has been so helpful.

• How do you feel like this relationship will benefit you in your longterm professional development?

• In the long run I feel like working with Ireina will be a major benifit for several reasons. First of all she has already helped me with things my gitgub work flow, getting over the panic of merge conflicts, and some general best practices as a whole. She has also expressed a willingness to help me prep for technical interviews as well as send me any contacts etc, that may help in my job search, though I would need to decide to move back to San Francisco if they were to be helpful. Finally she has already been a huge help at time when I am dealing with impostor's syndrome, or just down about coding in general. I am sure she will continue to be a good source of support.