This is part 4 of The Rails Generation Gap series.
Early in my career, mentorship felt personal. I had one guy, maybe two, who actually cared about teaching me. They’d sit with me, review my code, explain why Rails worked the way it did. That relationship didn’t just change my code—it changed how I thought about programming.
But as bootcamps took off, companies suddenly had to onboard groups of juniors at once. I remember watching teams try to scale mentorship in real time. Pair programming rotations, “office hours,” internal wikis. It wasn’t bad, but it was different. Instead of a single guide, you got a patchwork of advice from whoever had time that day.
I’ve been on both sides of that equation. I’ve been the junior, grateful for a patient mentor who explained things three different ways until it finally clicked. And I’ve been the mentor, with limited hours, trying to balance teaching with shipping. Scaling mentorship is hard. You want to give each person that “deep dive” experience, but reality often means handing out quick fixes instead.
The Rails community has always valued helping others grow. The question is, how do we maintain that spirit when the numbers don’t add up? When there are more new developers than seasoned ones? Maybe it’s about rethinking what mentorship looks like. Maybe it’s not one to one anymore, but one to many: blog posts, screencasts, livestreams, open source.
The old model
When I started Rails in 2008, mentorship felt more like an apprenticeship. You’d find someone who knew the framework, and they’d take you under their wing. Not because they had to, but because that’s how the community worked.
I remember my first Rails mentor. This guy would spend an hour on a single method. Not just “here’s how it works” but “here’s why it exists, here’s what breaks if you use it wrong, and here’s the history behind it.” Then he’d pull up the source code and say “Go read this chapter, then come back and tell me what you think.”
That kind of mentorship was slow, but it was thorough. You didn’t just learn Rails, you learned how to think about Rails. You absorbed the philosophy along with the syntax.
The relationship mattered too. When you hit a wall, you knew exactly who to ask. When you made progress, you had someone to share it with. That mentor became invested in your growth in a way that felt personal.
The scaling challenge
Then bootcamps changed the math. Suddenly, companies weren’t hiring one junior developer every few months. They were hiring cohorts of five, ten, sometimes twenty new developers at once.
The old mentorship model just couldn’t handle it. You can’t assign twenty juniors to five seniors and expect magic to happen. The seniors got overwhelmed, the juniors felt ignored, and everyone started scrambling for alternatives.
I watched teams try different approaches. Some did pair programming rotations where juniors worked with a different senior each week. Others set up “office hours” where seniors made themselves available for questions at specific times. A few tried to document everything in internal wikis and hope for the best.
Each approach had tradeoffs. Rotation meant juniors got exposure to different styles, but lost the continuity of a single relationship. Office hours were efficient, but felt transactional. Documentation was scalable, but couldn’t answer follow up questions or adapt to individual learning styles.
What we lost
The shift to scaled mentorship solved the numbers problem, but it changed the experience in ways we’re still figuring out.
The biggest thing we lost was that personal connection. With one mentor, they actually knew how you learned. They’d remember that you struggled with ActiveRecord associations but picked up routing quickly. They could push you when you needed it and back off when you were overwhelmed.
With the new approach, you get help from whoever’s available. That person doesn’t know your history. They solve today’s problem, but they can’t help you see the bigger picture.
And the trust thing is real. It’s awkward asking “stupid” questions when you’re talking to someone different every week. You start keeping problems to yourself instead of learning from them.
I’ve seen this play out in code reviews. In the old model, a mentor might spend twenty minutes explaining why a particular approach was problematic and walking through alternatives. In the scaled model, you’re more likely to get a comment like “use includes here” without much context about why.
What we kept
But the new approach has some real advantages too.
Getting different perspectives is actually pretty valuable. When you work with multiple seniors, you see that there are usually several ways to solve the same problem. One person might be all about performance, another cares more about readability. You start to understand the tradeoffs instead of just following one person’s style.
It’s also more resilient. In the old model, if your mentor left the company or got busy with other projects, you were stuck. With scaled approaches, there’s always someone else who can help.
And honestly, the push toward documentation has been good for everyone. When teams have to write stuff down instead of just passing it along verbally, that knowledge sticks around. New people can actually find answers instead of bugging the same senior developer with the same questions every week.
New forms of mentorship
The most interesting development has been the emergence of new mentorship models that work at scale.
Some companies have started formal apprenticeship programs where juniors spend their first six months rotating through different teams and projects. It’s structured, but it preserves some of the depth of traditional mentorship.
Others have embraced asynchronous mentorship through internal blogs, recorded code reviews, and shared learning resources. Seniors document their decision making process, and juniors can learn from it even when they’re not working directly together.
Open source has become a mentorship platform too. Contributing to Rails or popular gems gives you access to feedback from experienced developers around the world. It’s not as personal as traditional mentorship, but it’s incredibly scalable.
Plus, the Rails community stepped up with content. Podcasts, YouTube channels, newsletters, blogs—there’s way more learning material now than there was in 2008. It’s not the same as having someone sit next to you, but it fills in a lot of gaps.
Making it work
The teams that do this well mix different approaches. Maybe you get a formal mentor for your first few months, then it becomes more flexible as you get your bearings.
They also figure out that people learn differently. Some juniors want to be left alone to figure things out, with occasional check-ins. Others need someone looking over their shoulder more often. The scaled approach works when you can adapt to both types.
The main thing is actually thinking about it. Teams that just hire a bunch of juniors and hope they’ll figure it out usually have a bad time. The ones that plan for mentorship tend to do much better.
The community angle
Individual companies can only do so much. The Rails community as a whole has a role to play in mentorship too.
The culture of helping others is still there, but it’s expressed differently now. Instead of one on one relationships, it’s blog posts that explain complex concepts, conference talks that share hard won lessons, and open source contributions that make the framework better for everyone.
Social media has become a mentorship platform too. Twitter threads, LinkedIn posts, and Discord conversations provide bite sized learning opportunities. It’s not as deep as traditional mentorship, but it’s accessible to anyone with an internet connection.
The challenge is signal to noise. There’s so much content out there that it can be hard to find the good stuff. Curation becomes important. Lists of recommended resources, community endorsed tutorials, and trusted voices help filter the noise.
Looking ahead
Mentorship in Rails will keep evolving. Remote work has changed the dynamics again. AI tools are starting to provide some of the quick answers that used to require human help. The next generation of developers will have different expectations and different needs.
But the core principle remains the same: experienced developers helping newer ones grow. The format might change, but the spirit endures.
The question isn’t whether scaled mentorship is better or worse than the old model. It’s how we can make it work better. How do we preserve the depth and relationship building that made traditional mentorship valuable while still serving the larger numbers of people who want to learn Rails today?
I think the answer is hybrid approaches. Formal programs for structure, informal relationships for depth, community resources for scale, and flexibility to adapt as people’s needs change.
Closing thought
Mentorship is still happening. It just looks different now—less sitting next to someone at their desk, more scattered across blogs and Slack channels and code reviews. The trick is making sure it doesn’t get buried under all the noise.
If you’re a senior developer, find ways to teach at scale. Write that blog post you’ve been putting off. Record a screencast. Answer questions in community forums. Leave detailed feedback on open source PRs.
If you’re a junior developer, don’t wait for mentorship to come to you. Find formal mentors when you can, but also build relationships with peers, contribute to open source, engage with the broader community.
The Rails community has always been about helping each other grow. That spirit is still there, even if the methods keep changing.
What’s your experience with mentorship in Rails? How has it changed in your career, and what’s worked best for you?
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