[thorin]

It's difficult. Now I'm old in IT terms (48) I try to act in a mentor role for young developers I come in contact with. I have discussed their career progression and helped them apply for jobs etc. I don't feel this has ever been to the detriment of the company/project we've been working on at the time. Most of my "mentorship" involved telling the technical people not to focus on their technical skills and build other skills that they don't think are relevant, e.g. written and oral communication, English language (where not UK/US national), being dependable/reliable, not over promising and taking time to get things as right as possible 1st time (not rushing). I also look to the skills from ancient times, like those listed in the book Code Complete, and the lessons of mythical man month etc.

I was naturally quite a shy and reserved engineer and if asked to do something more senior or non technical I would avoid it want to continue coding. People who I've met later have encouraged me to go for it a bit more and accept responsibility or roles where I will have to learn on the job. I am not really coding nowadays but am involved in architecting some complex cloud systems. It has been a good progression, but work is stressful at times, mainly due to external factors.

I would not insist on a mentor, you should be ready for one, when one comes along, be open to it and try to talk to people at all levels and across different companies as well as the one you're at.