CodeDay reposted this
Yesterday marked the end of my mentorship at the CodeDay internship programme, March 2026. I started this few weeks ago with a group of developers who had never contributed to open source before. Today, they have made contributions to a real-world project used by thousands of people around the world. That turnaround still amazes me. Here's what I want every early-career developer reading this to understand: You don't need years of experience to contribute to anything meaningful. You don't need to build something from scratch. You don't need to have it all figured out. You just need someone to show you the door, and the courage to walk through it. In just a few weeks, my mentees went from "I don't know where to start" to reading real codebases, understanding contribution guidelines, writing meaningful code, and going through a real pull request review process. That growth didn't happen because of me. It happened because they showed up, asked hard questions, pushed through the confusion, and refused to give up when things didn't make sense the first time. My job was simple: point them in the right direction and get out of the way. If you're a developer who has been waiting for the "right time" to contribute to something meaningful, this is your sign. And if you're in a position to mentor someone, do it. The impact is bigger than you think, and it happens faster than you expect. I'm proud of every single one of them. PS: You can volunteer to mentor here at CodeDay in case you are interested in volunteering and mentoring: https://lnkd.in/ecbTAwdD #OpenSource #Mentorship #SoftwareDevelopment #DeveloperGrowth #TechCommunity #CareerDevelopment