[legerdemain]

I guess another take on how to find a mentor is, be active, be interesting, and be accomplished. In short, be worth supporting.

At university, many faculty are glad to interact with students who are curious, successful, and proactive. People will advocate for you if you clearly show potential.

Out of school, it's not as clear how to do this in every job. If you join a community and offer obvious value, senior members might try to help you out with advice.

But I've seen this work out much more with "frivolous" communities, like niche programming languages, or 3D graphics hobbyists, or Code for America type stuff. Not a lot of excitement around people who work in enterprisey jobs on enterprisey things.

The one exception to that I've found has been SREs, who, as a community, seem both tight-knit and nerdily excited about enterprisey things most devs find extremely dull.