I’ve had a slow climb in the tech industry, and any time I have been coached or mentored, that has always leveraged me upwards. More often than not I’ve looked for that help and have had to turn instead to books, podcasts, and other impersonal resources, bootstrapping my own up-leveling, because a person-to-person opportunity simply couldn’t be found. The value of any coaching or mentoring, no matter how brief or lasting a relationship that may be, cannot be understated.

I’m currently the engineering manager at NetGalley, the predominant platform in the publishing industry for distributing advanced reader copies for review and pre-publication marketing. Our now-CTO helped elevate our technical skills and improve our agile processes when he came onboard at this position and I was a pretty new engineer. I’ve been continuing what he started by implementing more coaching and advancing more lean principles in our team and with my peers in the parent company. We’re tiny by comparison to most tech product companies, and even so, it’s challenging and fun nonetheless.