Building a Path to the Future: Mentoring New SREs
summary
Focuses on mentoring early-career SREs with concrete practices: documents the why as well as the how, keeps a regular cadence of office hours, pairs by letting the mentee lead and uses a lightweight backup called riding shotgun for risky tasks. Cites hiring data (about 1,500 senior vs 15 junior SRE listings and 3,700 vs 550 across titles) to justify urgent pipeline work. Recommends Slack "rubber duck" threads, half-day weekly mentoring time, explicit leveling conversations, and active sponsorship.
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chapters (11)
- 0:00Intro
- 0:38Why talk about mentorship
- 1:20Why mentorship is important
- 3:37What it takes to be a good mentor
- 5:18Guiding principles
- 8:59Documentation
- 13:29Using Slack
- 17:52Issues with mentoring
- 20:28Issues with abstractions
- 25:27Sponsorship
- 26:32Conclusion
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