What We Learned After Mentoring 30+ Mentees
summary
Mentors report running 30+ mentorships across LFX and Google Summer of Code, find GSoC suits longer 6‑month work, LFX usually 3 months, and observe a ~40% continuation rate of mentees staying active. Practical practices that work: use scored spreadsheets and structured interviews to pick candidates, always co‑mentor, scope tasks to deliverables or research/POC, hold weekly camera‑on syncs and retrospectives, give clear feedback, and expect AI‑generated spam that requires tighter project specs and platform policy fixes.
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chapters (8)
- 0:00Mentoring CNCF contributors
- 2:28Why mentor
- 8:50Mentorship motivations
- 14:48Choosing projects
- 20:28Selecting mentees
- 26:26Running mentorship
- 32:31AI in mentorship
- 34:17Q&A
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