1. Do stuff: Pick up projects. Do open source work. Volunteer.
2. Network: Meet people in person.
"Finding a mentor" is a misnomer. You don't "find" a mentor any more than you find a girlfriend or spouse. A relationship with someone who can mentor you is the byproduct of everything else you do. Get out there and get busy. You may be surprised at the people who take an interest in you and your work.
As you work on the project, you will find mentors on the way, some will guide you on the technical stuffs, others might go beyond that. All the best.
Thanks.
That's not true, I've found at least two people on HN by simply approaching them and asking them if they were willing to teach me a concept and both of them agreed readily (and have shown considerable patience with me).
If there is one place where simply asking people that are skilled if they would please teach you pays off it's here.
I guess I don't know what I don't know. I can find out how to work through relatively simple tasks by research but my common core of experience is so out of line with what most people in the field take for granted, I find I am spending most of my time just trying to separate the wheat from the chaff.
I guess I don't want to feel like I am wasting someone's time with what might be a dumb question.
How do you pick up projects? Where would you find entry-level projects? Do you mean open source project (in which case there have been several posts on HN and reddit about getting started).
Maybe open source work is really the scenic route to where he wants to get - after all he's looking for paid work.
And he seems to making an effort to meet people in person (having joined two user groups). What else / where else can one hook up with other software people (if you say forget the internet)?
- Find a project you want to do. Maybe it's a website that does something simple, maybe it's an iphone app.
- Scrape together a first approach at building it.
- Build it again.
- Learn/read along the way
- Build it again.
After a few iterations you'll start to get the hang of it.
You are right about the iterations. Thanks.