TL;DR summary: reply to tell me what you want to learn so I can get you a mentor.
Longer version: Sometimes I hear that someone wants to get +2 in MediaWiki core or the ops repo, or that they hope to someday get into Google Summer of Code or deploy changes on the site ... but they don't know how.
And the "how" is going to depend on you. Maybe you're a systematic learner and you thrive on a syllabus with readings. Maybe you're an more opportunistic learner and you do better with exercises. Maybe you prefer to discuss problems and ideas with a group, and maybe you thrive with the personal attention of a mentor who'll review your patches and suggest where you need to improve.
I'm just speculating. Volunteers, staffers, any kind of technical contributors, please reply to this thread to give me data: what do you want to learn, and how do you learn best?
Examples might be:
* I want to learn enough about language engineering and mobile to help out with troubleshooting mobile apps and the mobile website in Asian languages. And I learn best by chewing on hard problems and getting help in IRC when I need it. * I want +2 in core and I want to work for the WMF someday, but people don't understand me and my patches get rejected or just sit waiting a long time, so I think I need to work on my English skills and figure out what I need to improve in my engineering approach. I need a mentor to assign me reading and writing work and CS texts to read.
I will almost certainly use the responses to develop the structure of a mentorship program, and start suggesting mentor-mentee matches that will include volunteers and WMF staffers.
(Unfortunately I'll probably lose internet access in the next couple days due to weather, but I'll respond when I get back online.)