Technical Mentoring
Helping good engineers grow into senior technical roles
I provide regular one-to-one mentoring for MSP engineers and technical leads. The sessions are based around the work they are actually doing, helping them develop the judgement, confidence and broader thinking that comes with a more senior technical role.
Moving into a senior role
Being a good engineer is only part of the job
Moving into a senior engineering or technical lead role changes what is expected of you. You are no longer responsible only for your own technical work. Other engineers start bringing problems to you, difficult escalations land on your desk and you are expected to make decisions about projects, changes, risk and technical direction.
Those skills develop with experience, but that experience takes time. Regular access to someone who has already dealt with many of the same situations can help an engineer settle into the role more quickly and develop their own way of handling them.
This is where I see technical mentoring being particularly useful: helping an engineer bridge the gap between being technically capable and becoming the person other people rely on for technical judgement.
One-to-one mentoring
Talk about the work you are actually doing
I don't work from a fixed training syllabus. The sessions are driven by what the engineer is dealing with in their day-to-day role.
We might review a difficult ticket, talk through an upcoming project, look at how they approached a problem, discuss a technical decision they are unsure about or explore a technology they need to understand better.
Sometimes the useful conversation isn't purely technical. A senior engineer may need to decide how much investigation is enough, how to explain risk to a client, how to challenge a proposed solution or how to help a less experienced engineer without simply taking the problem away from them.
The aim is not for me to become another escalation point that simply supplies answers. It is to help the engineer develop their own judgement and confidence so that they can deal with similar situations themselves.
Regular sessions
Mentoring works better as a relationship
This isn't intended to be a one-off training session. The value comes from meeting regularly and being able to follow an engineer's development over time.
As I get to know the engineer, their role and the MSP they work for, we can revisit previous discussions, see how projects or difficult cases developed and identify areas where they want to build more experience.
Sessions can be arranged at a regular interval that suits the engineer and the business. The exact format can evolve as the engineer develops and their responsibilities change.
Practical experience
Mentoring from someone who still does the work
I am a working technical consultant, not a professional trainer. Alongside mentoring, I continue to work on difficult escalations, migrations and infrastructure projects for MSPs and businesses.
I also deliberately retain a small number of long-standing business clients. That keeps me involved in the day-to-day reality of looking after and changing live IT environments, rather than talking about technology only from the outside.
That practical involvement matters to me. I want the mentoring to be grounded in the same problems engineers are dealing with: incomplete information, legacy systems, competing priorities, risk, users, suppliers and technology that does not always behave as the documentation suggests.
I don't actively pursue new managed IT customers. My work with MSPs is about supporting their engineers and technical teams, not competing with them for their clients.
Who it is for
Not just newly promoted engineers
An engineer who has recently moved into a senior or technical lead role is an obvious fit, particularly where the MSP wants to help them become comfortable with the additional responsibilities more quickly.
It can also be useful for an established senior engineer who has become the most technical person in the business. In a smaller MSP there may be nobody internally at a similar level with whom they can discuss an unusual problem, challenge an idea or talk through an important technical decision.
Having someone independent outside the business gives them another experienced technical person to have those conversations with.
Team reviews & roundtables
An independent voice in the room
I can also run occasional sessions with support teams to look at how technical work moves through the business and where frustrations have developed between different support levels.
First-line engineers and senior technical staff can see the same escalation process very differently. First line may feel that escalated tickets disappear without explanation, while senior engineers may be frustrated by tickets arriving without the troubleshooting or information they need.
As someone outside the internal reporting structure, I can help both sides talk through what is happening, challenge assumptions where necessary and keep the discussion focused on practical improvements rather than assigning blame.
These sessions can also be useful for discussing recurring technical problems, support processes or areas where the team would benefit from sharing more knowledge internally.
For MSP owners & technical leaders
Develop the people you already have
Promoting a strong engineer is an investment in them and in your business. Regular external mentoring can give them another source of experience while they grow into the role, without replacing the knowledge and leadership that already exists within your MSP.
Because I am independent, the engineer also has someone outside their management structure with whom they can talk openly about technical challenges and decisions.
Where a discussion uncovers a problem or project that genuinely needs another pair of hands, I can also provide advanced technical support. The mentoring itself, however, remains focused on developing the engineer rather than turning every difficult problem into consultancy work.
Get in touch
Got an engineer ready for their next step?
If you have recently promoted someone into a senior technical role, have an experienced engineer who would benefit from an external technical sounding board, or simply want to discuss whether mentoring could work for your team, get in touch.