Reader,

You don't even have to be young. I just use "wunderkind" as a catch-all for "premature seniority" or "early career success".

Yeah, yeah, I can hear you experienced folks scoffing and smirking already.

You're right. You can't slurp up 10-20 years of experience through a straw from a course on QA stuff.

You can't get there by learning to code or sitting next to your Senior QA pals watching their computer screen like a hawk to copy their every move 🦅

You've gotta do stuff and do it for a long time. And watch what happens. And learn from it so you can do it again smarter and wiser next time.

That's how you get wisdom.

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I don't wanna talk about wisdom. Because you know what sucks? Some people with 10+ years in the field still don't have a good spread of technical skills.

Or they've refused to code for that entire time, and now it's biting them in the butt.

Coding isn't for everyone, and there's definitely still QA roles where you don't need code. But why chance it?

I don't like doing API testing in Postman, but I know how. I don't like querying databases, but I know how to do it.

If you think hard enough, you'll find stuff you also know how to do well even though you'd rather eat a whole onion than do it every day.

So what was I saying? Oh yeah. If you know skills that are in-demand right now, there's a good chance someone with double or even triple your years of experience doesn't know that skill yet.

Why? How could this happen?

You get comfortable. Believe me, I'm not even 5 years in and I'm already starting to get why people don't know Playwright yet.

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It takes effort to build side projects and experiment with new tools outside of a 9-5. I'm not turning my nose up at the people who don't wanna do side projects. I'll be that person one day.

But right now, I'm not that person, and you shouldn't aim to be either.

The way I got to where I am in QA today is by learning stuff before I was ready, and learning it as quickly as I could.

That means starting with scrappy little "mvp" projects where all they do is 1 tiny thing, and then building on it.

For Playwright, that means you build a project that tests 1 page of 1 website and verifies 1 element. Then you can get fancy. Add whatever you want.

But you've gotta stop overwhelming yourself with this concept of "not being senior enough" to build your own test automation project or do something that seems scary to you right now.

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The truth is, all the Senior QA I talked to when I was battling imposter syndrome were not lying to me when they said they still get imposter syndrome too.

I even had the privilege of seeing one of them overcome their own imposter syndrome around being a Dev and finally transition to it after several years in QA thinking he wasn't good enough to cut it.

Often all you're missing is the belief in your own ability to learn and achieve.

And then you're usually missing some kind of project to reinforce that belief.

Confidence doesn't mean much if you can't point to things that justify that confidence. You don't wanna walk around with unearned confidence, do you?

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So if you're trying to be someone with earned confidence who can show off skills many people take years to acquire even if it only took you months, I'm launching a course soon.

It's called Social QA Bootcamp. It might not even be called that when it launches, I haven't decided yet. The name's plastered everywhere in any case.

But I'm here to help beginner testers -- or even just beginners to automation, AI, content creation, or other skills I teach in the course -- skip the "imposter" stage entirely.

Like a bypass around Imposterville with a 200mph speed limit (321 kph, not that it matters, it's just really fast lol).

How do you learn a year's worth of skills in a month? Help from an experienced mentor who is actually showing up to help you learn.

Wingman-style. Or sidekick. Or whatever you wanna call it.

Basically I'm not some con artist trying to sit around collecting royalties from a Udemy course I recorded 5 years ago but never kept up-to-date.

I want to see more people kick their imposter syndrome monkey's ass.

And I've been told by a mentee recently that "I really care," and you know what? I do! I care a lot. Why else would I spend 2 months at 4am - 6am making a course to help people get past their fear of learning all these things?

Honestly, I'm excited beyond belief.

I hope you're at least curious.

Because I don't see anyone teaching this stuff the way I'm going to.

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Also, if you're trying to take the bull by the horns today (carpe-diem-style), why not try learning Cypress? I attended this workshop and coded along with Anna as she taught people how to build a test automation project.

By the end of the video, I already had a [almost-working] Cypress project to add to my GitHub portfolio. It's still sitting there today if you go look.

But watch this video first to dip your toes into a new test framework (if Cypress is new to you). Also because Anna's cool. I know cuz we had a coffee chat about conference talks the day before she gave this talk. Give her a follow on LinkedIn, she's got good content too.

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Happy Thursday, folks, and don't be afraid to shine brighter than you did yesterday.

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Cheers,

Steven