Spotlight: Stefan Shopov, QA Manager

Stefan Shopov is a QA Manager at MentorMate. He started in the company’s Sofia office six and a half years ago as a QA Specialist. MentorMate is the first and only job he’s held in Sofia. Hailing from the provincial town of Ruse, Stefan planned to convince management to open a MentorMate office in his hometown so he could move back there. Surprise, surprise, he was able to after only two years! Though he didn’t move back to Ruse permanently, he now frequently travels back and forth between the two offices.

In his current role as QA Manager, Stefan has a lot of responsibilities that make his job fun and interesting. He’s responsible for the career development of 16 other QAs as well as the growth of the QA department at large. Additionally, he handles the department’s technical training to keep everyone up to date on the latest in QA strategy and technology.

The thing that he likes most about working at MentorMate is that he’s given a chance to nourish all of his wild ideas. As shown in convincing management to open the Ruse office, Stefan is very forward-thinking in his work. Before he accepted his first IT job, he spent hours watching QA Academy videos. He admired the enthusiasm of the trainers sacrificing their time to help others succeed. He decided that one day he wanted to be a part of such an academy and help others.

After five years at MentorMate, he was able to help MentorMate its own QA Academy.

MentorMate’s QA Academy combines lectures and homework with theoretical and practical exams to train and find the best candidates to hire onto our QA team.

Outside of work, Stefan is an excellent tennis player and participates in a lot of tournaments. He even won the Masters Series which pins the 16 best non-professional players in Sofia against one another. His love of tennis extends to tabletop tennis as well. His other hobbies include cycling — both on the road and off — and traveling abroad. He’s visited 33 countries across five continents with his favorite trip being Australia and New Zealand.

His love of technology is shown in his hobbies as well. He participated in two different editions of the NASA Space App challenge as a juror. He likes to see how young people think about innovations.

All of these hobbies help Stefan be more productive, focused, and effective at his job as a QA Manager.