[saghm]

> What we both needed was the company setting very clear, explicit expectations. "X is your mentor. X's main job is to mentor you and help you swim in this deep end." Though I think the entire company was learning a ton of stuff at that phase.

It's been a while since I've mentored someone, but that was always one of the things I made sure to mention in my first conversation with any interns/new grads I'd mentor: "While you're here, mentoring you is the highest priority thing for me to do. If there are ever any times when I have something so time sensitive that it would take priority over answering your questions, I will explicitly let you know. Otherwise, always assume that it's okay to ask me something, because if for some reason I can't answer and you don't know that, it's my fault for not telling you." It helped that the company where I worked at the time had very explicit time periods where someone was considered a "new grad" versus a full team member (since they actually would rotate on 3 teams before ending up on one of them full time), so this strategy might not work as well in places where the expectations for mentors are not laid out as well, but I honestly think that it will almost always be the best strategy to just be open and communicative with anyone you're mentoring. Mentees are just people like anyone else, and them being inexperienced as engineers doesn't make them any less able to understand clearly communicated guidelines, and if you need to adjust the guidelines as you go, there's no reason they can't understand that too.