Stop Asking for Mentors. Start Building a Tribe.
We couldn't find a seat at the table. So we built our own table, and somehow it ended up inside 10 Downing Street.
There is a piece of advice given to every woman, junior, or outsider starting in tech: “You need to find a mentor.”
It sounds great. It conjures up an image of a Yoda-like figure who will guide you through the political minefield, fix your code, and hand you a promotion.
So you go to networking events. You drink warm white wine. You wear a sticky name tag. You awkwardly ask senior people: “Will you mentor me?” And they say they are busy. Or worse, they say yes, and then you have a Zoom call where you both stare at each other because you have nothing to talk about.
I realized early on that Cold Outreach Mentorship is a myth.
I didn’t have a tribe. I didn’t have an “Old Boys Club” to slide into. So, along with a group of other incredible women in tech, we decided to stop waiting for an invite and build the club ourselves. We called it DevelopHer.
We didn’t want “Small Talk”. We wanted survival strategies. We didn’t want “Empowerment Panels”. We wanted hard skills.
And because we stopped asking for permission and started building value, weird things happened. We went from complaining in a pub to holding mentoring sessions inside 10 Downing Street.
Here is why you should stop looking for a Saviour (Mentor) and start building a Tribe.
The Fallacy of “Vertical” Mentorship
Everyone looks Up. They want the VP, the Founder, the person 10 years ahead. But people 10 years ahead are:
Extremely busy.
Often out of touch with the problems you face today. (The way they got promoted in 2016 doesn’t work in 2026).
The Fix: “Horizontal” Mentorship. The most valuable people in your life aren’t the ones on the stage. They are the ones sitting next to you in the audience.
The peer who knows how to fix the specific bug you are stuck on.
The friend who tells you you are underpaid (and shows you their offer letter to prove it).
DevelopHer wasn’t led by billionaires. It was a collective of peers sharing telemetry from the trenches.
Rule: Build a squad of peers who are as hungry as you. In 5 years, they will be the VPs. And you will be the only one with their WhatsApp number.
How to Build a “Third Space” (The DevelopHer Protocol)
If you can’t find a community that fits you, you have to engineer it. We built DevelopHer on three principles that you can steal for your own tribe:
1. Kill the Small Talk Traditional networking is exhausting because it is performative. “So, what do you do?” is a boring question. We curated events where the goal was Real Talk.
Instead of “What is your job?”, ask “What is the biggest fire you are fighting this week?”
Shared trauma bonds people faster than shared success.
2. Create High-Status Utility We didn’t just meet for drinks. We created utility. We organized mentoring sessions where we matched people based on skills, not just job titles. Because we were organised and high-value, doors opened.
The Downing Street Story: We didn’t get into the Prime Minister’s residence because we were “important.” We got in because we represented a cohesive, organised force of women in tech that the government wanted to understand. Lesson: Power respects (fears?!) organisation.
3. The “Give First” Gate To join the tribe, you had to bring something. Not money, but insight. A tribe isn’t an audience. It’s a potluck. Everyone brings a dish. If you want to attract high-quality people, create a space where they learn something, rather than just being pitched to.
How to “Manufacture” a Mentor (Without asking)
If you still want that senior guidance, don’t ask “Will you be my mentor?” It’s like asking someone to marry you on the first date. It’s too much heavy lifting.
Use The Specific Ask.
Bad: “Can I pick your brain about my career?” (Huge cognitive load. They have to figure out what you need).
Good: “I saw you managed the migration to K8s. I am about to propose the same thing. Could I send you my 1-page plan for a sanity check? I promise to take no more than 10 minutes of your time.”
Why this works:
It strokes their ego (you did your research).
It is low friction (Yes/No).
It shows you do the work.
If they say yes, and you execute well, they are now invested in your success. Boom. You have a mentor. No awkward question required.
Summary
You don’t need a Yoda. You don’t need a formal program. You don’t need permission.
You need a group chat of 5 people who will tell you when your code is bad, when you are underpaid, and when you need to go to the pub.
If you can’t find that table... build it. And if you build it well enough, you might just end up at Downing Street.
(Next week on Technically Feasible: How to survive the "Office Sniper" (who attacks in meetings) and the "Bulldozer" (who ignores boundaries). A field guide to conflict resolution for people who hate conflict.)