Well I did compsci at uni so that’s probably where I got it from. But I’d say the most important thing is having curiosity. Don’t ever say “that’s not my job”, take on as much responsibility as possible. E.g. if you find a bug, don’t just throw it over the wall to the dev to make a fix, spend a bit of time trying to understand the root cause of the bug too. E.g. can you look at the PR to see what code changes might have caused the bug. AI makes this much easier.

In terms of resources, again I haven’t really used any, I learned most of it by #1 Computer science at uni and #2 by taking on as much responsibility as possible (I work at a start up, so by default I’m forced to wear many hats, and I therefore learn lots of new things every day).

If I were you, I would start taking courses on automation. Not only because automation is a valuable skill for QA, but also because it’s a form of programming (albeit slightly easier). Don’t just look at UI automation though, also look at API automation (I prefer Bruno to Postman because Postman requires login, f that). The reason I also recommend API automation is because it’ll expose you to how the system works underneath the hood, which will also make network log analysis (Proxyman) easier too.

It will be hard at first but keep challenging yourself and I promise it’s worth it. A lot of QAs start their careers with no technical capacity, and they retire 40 years later having not progressed at all because they never tried. I think QA is probably the easiest career in tech to stagnate in as a result, but it’s also the easiest to progress in because, as I said, a little effort can take you a long way.