TL;DR

To become a passionate software tester, you need to make a decision on how to invest your time in learning and practicing. Finding a mentor can help you in making that decision. This post is based on a remarkable book written by Chad Fowler, The Passionate Programmer.

Every craft has a mentor. In software testing, it is not common to have a mentor. Software testers cherish their gain knowledge and practice without the will to share it with junior testers. Mostly they are afraid of their company status. But the benefit of being a mentor goes both ways.

How to get a mentor?

This is easier than you think because, in the beginning, you can have a mentor so that the mentor is not aware of that fact. You first choose influenced software tester. Look for speakers of some testing conference that regularly blog about software testing. The blog is essential because it means that they want to teach other testers. Read their blog and note your questions. Think about them and post a thoughtful comment about your questions. Doing that, the blog owner will notice you, and if you ask that person to be your official mentor, the answer would probably be yes. If not, you can try with another blogger.

Giving back

Mentoring is a two-way process. Is someone is your mentor, you need to be its “groupie.” At least you can do is to reshare mentor blog posts via social networks, you can retweet mentor tweets about software testing. And do not forget to refer his work by word of mouth.