He walked me through getting the answer myself
Velda Kiara · veldakiara.substack.com · UK
Senior Software Engineer
Velda is a friend that I met through DjangoCon US and then mentored when she was on my team for a Djangonaut Space session. Velda is one of the most charismatic I know and has a knack of bringing out the best in people. Over the years we built up a friendship and worked together on more projects, including a year on the DEFNA board together and helping maintain the Django Debug Toolbar. I was deeply honored when she asked me to be a reference for her application for a Global Talent visa to the UK.
Below is an adjusted transcript of a video call where I asked Velda my questions.
What hesitation might someone have about hiring Tim as a mentor, and what would you tell them based on your experience working with him?
Hesitation? You are a stranger on the internet. If I’m coming across your profile, you’re a stranger at that point. So of course I’m going to think, okay, I get the service, but who are you as a person? How do I expect the interactions to be?
For me, I met Tim through Djangonaut Space. And before that, I actually met him in person at one of the Djangonaut Space tables at the sprints at DjangoCon US. He was a personable person. I felt like I could actually ask him any question, like, “Hey, how do I do this? How do I get this on my machine? What does this do? What’s the point of everything?” He’s really accommodating to the different types of questions, and he never says, “Oh, this is obvious, you should know this.” He’s always getting to know what perspective the other person is coming in with, because everybody has their own backgrounds and their own assumptions too. So he’s open to figuring out where you are, to get a baseline of where you are and how he could also help you.
And what I would tell them, based on working with him on open source, particularly Django Debug Toolbar, is: I like the fact that he’s patient and he’s kind, and he also keeps you accountable. He’s always asking, “You said you were going to do this, how is that coming along?” And I didn’t realize he was going to follow up. So it also helps get things done.
Other than that, I also like the fact that he had a really good and clear schedule. Every time he’d say, “Hey, I have a window between this and this on a particular day.” So if you have challenges during the week, or during times when it wasn’t particularly scheduled, you could have some time to chat about whatever bugs you’re dealing with. And I appreciate that. He managed expectations. He’d say, “This is what I’m going to help you with, and these are the things that I expect from you,” and then you’d have a conversation about the different expectations so that you’re all on the same page. So that goes back to clarity too.
What did you find from working with Tim?
In the group sessions, he eliminated the quiet, the social, awkward silence, the uncomfortable silence.
I appreciate the fact that he got to ask questions to each and every person during the call. I’m a chatty person, so technically I would talk more, but he was also asking the people who were not so active, to kind of draw them into the conversation so that they don’t feel like they’re not involved. And I like the fact that he reached out to a person who was less active to find out if they were okay, first of all as a person and in their lives, and then figure out how to get them back to the program. I do think that’s something important, because sometimes you think, “Oh, maybe they’re not interested,” and then you just move on without trying to find out what’s actually going on.
What would be three benefits of working with Tim?
The accountability part is a huge one. Sometimes I say things, and he remembers, and I think, oh yeah, he still remembers that. The kind of stuff he remembers, particularly goals that people tell him about, whether it’s just in passing or whether somebody is very serious. Sometimes I just say things in passing, and he asks, “Yeah, how’s that going?” Having a person who keeps you accountable in that way, I do appreciate it, because most of the time I need someone to call me out, since I do forget. And it’s not accountability in an aggressive way. It’s like, life happens, a lot of things are going on, what can I do to help you if it’s something I could help with?
The other thing is, he helped me ask the right questions and walked me through getting the answer myself. He didn’t tell me, “Oh yeah, just go ahead and change that line, that line is going to help you with this issue.” He’d ask, “What do you think that particular function does? How does that relate to how Django works, and how do Django and Django Debug Toolbar work together?” So he didn’t say, “Hey, just go do this and you’ll be fine.” He helped me understand that I knew all this before, that I just needed either a nudge or to figure out the actual question I wanted to ask, and to get the answers by myself. Which I think eliminated a sort of dependency, because sometimes in mentorship, once you get accustomed to having a person you could ask questions and get answers directly, without them helping you get to the answers yourself, it does cultivate dependency. And he didn’t want to do that. He’d say, “No, you know all this stuff, you’ve been doing a lot more than this issue, so you can figure it out, I just need to steer you there.” I got to work on that issue and I felt very empowered. I thought, “Oh yeah, I actually know what that does, and I don’t know why I was getting confused.” That part is very important, and something I took with me from the program and as a professional.
And then the other thing is still on that: how he clarifies things. He helps people get clarity in terms of breaking down something huge and making it seem like, “Hey, these are a couple of the steps that you could take to do this huge thing.” Having that simplicity presented to me also helped. He brings a lot of benefit.
Why would you recommend working with Tim?
I highly recommend him. Hire Tim for all your mentorship needs. Not everything; he can’t fix your life, he’s not a therapist. Just mentorship.
He has some trust as well. He’s built out trust in the community and open source spaces, and that feeds his credibility as a person and as a mentor. Since he’s been doing mentorship for a long time, maybe he hasn’t considered all that he’s been doing as mentorship, but to me, it does seem like he’s been cultivating this as a skill from way, way back.
What else would you want someone to know?
He’s good with schedules, so scheduling is not going to be a particular issue. And he’s also accommodating to people’s needs.