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by bigwavedave 1902 days ago
Absolutely- getting a mentor who will make time for pair programming is invaluable. Early in my career as a self-taught dev (my degree was in a different area), I landed a job as an associate dev and was assigned a "mentor" who wouldn't give me the time of day. While I'm sure he was very busy, it was also very frustrating to be told every time I reached out: "Give me one sec, I've gotta finish something up, I'll message you when I'm done" only for them to ghost me for days even after I'd reach out again (I couldn't even drop by their desk since we were both remote devs). So I made different connections, got to know my other coworkers better, and found a person who wasn't just willing to mentor me and pair with me, but was excited about it and glad I would reach out! I learned more from him in a week than three months with my former "mentor".

Moral of the story: find someone who's happy to mentor you, willing to pair program, and wants to see you grow and succeed. I can't promise that you'll never feel like a fraud again, but I can promise that you'll feel more confident about the work you do. The sooner you can do this, the sooner you'll find your "muchness" and become "much more muchier" (to quote Tim Burton's adaptation of the Mad Hatter).