Talk given at TestBash Manchester 2019 Abstract: “This is scaring me as hell - and that’s exactly why I need to do it!” Can you relate to that? This year, my personal challenge was to become code-confident. As a tester, I felt the need to up my game here. My hypothesis: “I believe that doing many small hands-on coding exercises and challenges, on my own as well as together with other interested people, will result in increased confidence in my programming skills. I’ll know I have succeeded when I have developed a small product from scratch.” What I did was to finally use my GitHub account and create my very first public repository. I called for collaboration and found people willing to review my code and to pair up with me on further challenges. Rinse and repeat! The question to be answered: was jumping headfirst a viable way to improve my coding skills? Join me on this walk through my code - along with the stories of my struggles, the solutions found, and the lessons learned. Takeaways - Understand why honing our skills is essential for us as testers - Learn how scary challenges can help you grow in short time when you have people who support you - See how pairing speeds up your learning journey and make more things possible than you would have ever imagined