Ask HN: Is it too late to find a mentor after 30 for a software developer?

Its not too late at 30, 40, 50, or any other age... a mentor is simply someone who guides you down a road you haven't been down before, and that can happen at any stage of your career. That applies whether you're a new developer or one who's mentoring your own mentees.

Look for someone who is doing what you want to be doing, who's friendly and open to starting that kind of relationship. It doesn't have to be someone near you geographically, though that helps if you want to have frequent face-to-face meetings over coffee or a meal. I would encourage you to look for someone who's not only doing the things you want to be doing, but who has also faced similar challenges getting to where they want to be. For example, because you're currently freelancing, it might be helpful to find someone who has experienced life as a freelancer or a consultant in the same kind of commercial environment. I don't know but I'm guessing that being in Turkey is going to work differently than being based in the US, for business reasons if nothing else (a fair bit of the advice I give out to young consultants revolves around our own somewhat Byzantine tax system.)

Finding someone you feel comfortable asking to be a mentor may be tricky if you're not well-established, but go to a lot of meetups in your area, and don't be shy about talking to the speakers afterwards. Often a small group of individuals will end up chatting, and if you keep seeing the same small groups doing so you can bet that one of them will have some good advice for you. And don't let your age become the issue here—you're not at all too old to be getting into this field, and its really irrelevant to what you need at this stage of your career.

Most mentors are heavily biased, they might save you time and help you avoid some common gotchas but they won't teach you critical thinking.

Not at all. Shoot me an email, it’s in my profile.

100x this. I've unfortunately never been in a position where I had someone to work under to be mentored (being self taught from the age of 12, 32 now), I've found by far my most important skill is critical thinking.

I'm definitely not the fastest learner and am absolutely stunted in some areas (computer science) but through persistence and critical thinking I've been able to excel in any position I've found myself in.

I've also been able to act as a mentor of sorts for several other developers (all but a couple my senior in age) success always comes through their own drive to learn. While my guidance just fills in gaps and helps them through difficult concepts that I personally wasted tons of time struggling through since I didn't have someone point out the clear path for me.

Google for "development meetup turkey" and go from there. A mentor is unlikely alone, what is likely to work best for you is to find a community, even if it's just online. Substitute meetup with discord, slack, facebook, twitter, irc, etc, all those are places where there may be a community. Different people in there can offer different ideas or pointers to help you move in the direction you want, and to figure out that direction to begin with.

After you choose a target for the type of job you would like to shoot for, it's generally: 1) learn the tech, 2) learn the context/industry, 3) come up with a project you can develop on your own, and 4) develop it to a reasonable level, to prove you know 1 and 2, and 5) start knocking on doors.