Learning To Teach

Recently I've had the opportunity to start mentoring someone who is trying to get into development. It's a weird position to be in only being around 3 years into my career because I feel like I'm still learning a ton myself. I'm nowhere near the "complete" developer. Thankfully I've had some great mentors the last 3 years so it's time to put that knowledge to the test. The person I'll be mentoring will be interning with us in a few weeks at our company. When they start, we needed to have a gameplan of how someone that is new to programming and the team can be productive. I came up with a basic timeline of events to help us keep track of progress. Month 1: Onboarding and Training Week 1-2: Introduction to the company, team, and tools. Overview of the tech stack: React, C#, and Azure. Setup development environment. Week 3-4: Basic training sessions on React, C#, and Azure. Small introductory projects or tasks to familiarize with the codebase and tools. Month 2: Initial Project Assignment Week 5-6: Assign a small project related to React. Focus on building a simple component or feature. Regular check-ins with the mentor for feedback and guidance. Week 7-8: Assign a small project related to C#. Focus on creating a simple API or service. Introduce Azure basics (e.g., creating and deploying a web app). Month 3: Intermediate Projects Week 9-10: Intermediate project combining React and C#. For example, building a full-stack feature with a React frontend and C# backend. Week 11-12: Deep dive into Azure services relevant to the project (e.g., Azure Functions, Cosmos DB, App Services). Implement Azure services in the project. The other thing having an intern made me realize is I have to be rock solid on my fundamental understanding of keywords and definitions of concepts in our primary languages C#, and Javascript (React). I don't want to say something that is inaccurate and send them down the wrong path. I've been watching @theprimeagen a lot on youtube and want to adopt his teaching style to some extent because he does such a good job explaining the fundamentals of whatever he's talking about.