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Walking up to someone and asking, “Will you be my mentor?” has always seemed to me like the adult version of a kid walking up to another kid at a party and asking, “Will you be my friend?”

What you’re really asking is: “Will you commit some amount of unpaid time to guiding my career for an indefinite period?”

But formal mentorship isn’t the only way to benefit from the wisdom of those who came before. I’ve never formally asked anyone to mentor me. And yet I’ve had dozens of unofficial mentors.

One way to learn from others is by copying what you observe.

Sometimes this means reading books or blogs from engineers you respect and directly applying their ideas to your work.

I’ve also been fortunate to work alongside some extremely talented engineers, and I shamelessly copied the things they did well.

When I meet one of these engineers, I try to figure out what they’re doing differently: How do they approach a problem? What do they read? How do they communicate in meetings? What do they know that I don’t?

Then I steal whatever seems useful and apply it to my own career.

Still, just observing has its limits. Asking questions can get you even farther.

I’ve asked managers how they approached difficult conversations, and I’ve asked engineers what their process was for solving problems I thought were impossible.

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