The Vernon Richard Show

Rich reckons testers and QEs are the best positioned engineers of the next few years. Vern's question is whether a market that knows exactly what it wants also knows what it needs. Tell us which of us you think is closer, and why. If you violently agree or violently disagree, definitely tell us.

Questions, comments, concerns, corrections, all of it is welcome, and the more of you who share what is actually happening where you work, the better a picture the rest of us get.

Drop a comment on the post, drop a comment on the video, or come and find us on LinkedIn. And if you got something out of this one, like it, subscribe, and send it to the person you were arguing with about this last week.

Links to stuff we mentioned during the pod:
03:34 and 11:33 - Rich's LinkedIn post, the one this whole episode is built onRich's LinkedIn
Rich's website

26:09 - Vern's newsletter, Yeah, But Does It Work?
30:02 and 37:52 - Steven DevonportSteve's comment on the post, and his follow up question about whether visibility and transparency are the currencies we should be spending

35:17 - Exploratory data analysis
40:28 - Huib Schoots
40:46 - Keith KlainKeith's blog, Quality Remarks

43:21 - Oracles and Evals
46:59 - If you’re wondering the term “The Fat Controller” comes from, here’s the Wikipedia entry for Sir Topham Hatt
49:51 - Rashik PrasadRashik's comment about wearing more hats

50:58 - ELT stands for Executive Leadership Team aka The C-Suite. SLT is the Senior Leadership Team, the layer below
55:26 - Jason SmithJason's comment about responsibility being distributed while accountability is not

58:10 - The episode where we talked about quality coaches and specialists being distributed across teams
1:00:48 - James Thomas, friend of the podJames's blog

1:04:23 - Episode 34, 6 AI Tool Ideas That Will Transform How You Test, where tool idea #1 is the LLM that reads your tickets for you
1:09:27 - The jagged frontierHelen Toner’s article Taking Jaggedness Seriously where I first heard the term
The paper where Ethan Mollick coined the term

Vernon Richards and Richard Bradshaw on the show
The Vernon Richard Show on LinkedIn and YouTube

00:00 - Intro
01:31 - ⚽️ Fresh World Cup wounds and new specs
03:34 - Careful what you shout from the rooftops
06:25 - The market is being very clear about what it wants
08:11 - Wanting vs needing
10:50 - Nobody enjoys writing test cases. Turns out that was practice
11:33 - The post, read out in full
13:38 - Rich joined that project as the AI QA and then…
15:50 - Building an agent felt suspiciously familiar
17:17 - "It's not my work": testing what the agent wrote
18:23 - Some engineers have not adapted, and it is not a skills problem
20:10 - The person on the project who found more bugs than Rich did
22:20 - "I don't know what a dedicated QA would have done"
24:09 - Two job numbers heading in opposite directions
26:09 - More code, more surface area: the maths from Vern's newsletter
28:06 - Why the model swore blind that Finnish was not on the list
30:02 - Steven Devonport takes issue with the word evolving
32:16 - Rich reckons most of the AI testing problem is old news
35:17 - The AI crowd reinvented exploratory testing and gave it another name
37:52 - Steve's tangent: which currency should we be spending?
42:46 - When 70/30 drifts to 55/45, who makes the call?
43:21 - We used to be handed our oracles
45:28 - Vern's problem with calling it a black box
46:59 - The Fat Controller heuristic (and his new name)
48:56 - The prompt was still asking for values that no longer existed
49:51 - Rashik Prasad: if everyone owns quality, who holds its shape?
50:58 - What an AI first mandate actually does to a company
52:45 - Everyone has hold of a different part of the elephant
55:26 - Jason Smith: responsibility travels, accountability stays put
56:29 - Four or five people changes more than you would think
59:09 - Your pod is not the only pod
1:01:12 - Responsible for the outcome, allowed to decide nothing
1:02:46 - Ten factories became a hundred
1:04:48 - The standards check nobody could build until now
1:05:28 - Vern remembers what everyone did to the linters
1:09:33 - Mostly right, most of the time, and the trap inside that
1:10:46 - Why Rich is excited anyway
1:12:05 - The market wants what it wants
1:12:43 - Wrap up

Call to action - How are you proving you can actually use this stuff? Certs? Stories? A suspiciously long list of tools on your CV? We want to hear what the market is asking of you right now, especially if you're hiring or job hunting. And if your CV says "I use Copilot", ask yourself the question before Rich does: so what? Drop us a message on LinkedIn and let us know.

AI is becoming an expectation rather than a differentiator. So if everyone is using it, how do you actually stand out?
In this episode, Richard and Vernon discuss the changing job market, why simply saying "I use AI" no longer means much, and how to demonstrate real value in an industry that's changing faster than ever. From AI certifications and CVs to storytelling, trust, and communicating your impact, they explore what professionals should be focusing on next.
**In this episode:**
* Why AI is no longer enough to make you stand out
* The return of certifications—and whether they matter
* How to communicate your value beyond your CV
* Why impact beats tool lists every time
* Building with AI vs. building AI
* The skills that will matter most in the years ahead
If you enjoyed the discussion, don't forget to like, subscribe, and let us know your thoughts in the comments. How are you proving your value in the age of AI?
Chapters
00:00 - Intro
01:19 - Welcome (Tees, Tiles, Travel, and Trouwen)
05:15 - Where should you place your bets right now?
08:29 - Wait, certifications are back?
11:50 - Do you still have your GCSEs on your CV?
13:34 - The three flavours of AI work
15:43 - Vern's guide to surviving the trust recession
20:04 - The AI etiquette flip nobody announced
21:27 - How to blow an opportunity in one DM
26:05 - Here comes the trough of disillusionment
29:53 - Rich's two-word CV test
32:31 - Manual, skilled, or knowledge work? (Vern's ATD talk preview)
35:58 - Testing has been rehearsing this for decades
40:15 - CV bullets that make Rich want to interview you
44:01 - How good at AI are you, really?
46:05 - The four levels Vern pinched from Dan North
48:30 - "It's my mission": how Rich works with AI
51:30 - The skill nobody's talking about
52:45 - Next time: who's looking after all these agents?
58:10 - Wrap up
Links to stuff we mentioned during the pod
01:31 - OfferZen (who are still around - yay!) sponsored one of the Let's Test events in South Africa. The speakers got a tee for presenting!I would love it if we could figure out a way to run Let's Test South Africa again because it was an incredible event…

03:05 - Congratulations Beren and Elaine! ❤️Other notable guests from the software world included:Cassandra H. Leung (website and LI)
Ard Kramer (LI)
Zeger Van Hese (LI)
Viola Korte (LI)
Geert van de Lisdonk (who Vernon rudely didn't mention but can also be found on LI 🤦🏾‍♂️)

05:47 - John CutlerJohn talks about Bets, Boards, Missions and North Stars from 2021 but if you want to read something more recent…
… you should check out John's newsletter
John's LinkedIn

08:52 - Anthropic's certifications (or learnings at least)
08:20 - Google's AI certifications (or learnings at least)BE ADVISED: These may not be the same ones Rich mentioned - YMMV!

12:12 - Chris ArmstrongChris's blog
Chris's podcast The Testing Peers (of PeersCon fame!)
Chris's YouTube
Chris's LinkedIn

21:27 - Gergely Orosz aka The Pragmatic EngineerHere's the post about AI-written messages and it turns out Gergely had another example of this happen more recently 😬
The Pragmatic Engineer newsletter
Also, if by some miracle you're reading this Gergely, I've learned how to pronounce your name properly now 🤦🏾‍♂️🙏🏾 VR

26:05 - The Gartner hype cycle (peak of inflated expectations, trough of disillusionment)
32:20 - Vernon's talk at Agile Testing Days 2026 If Testers Had a Dragon's Den Pitch, Would Anyone Invest?Hit him up for a discount code!

44:01 - An X post about how companies are talking about AI proficiency at the org level
46:05 - Dan North's talk on dynamic teams and skill levelsIt turns out (because Dan) he's done several talks on this topic!There's this (the first one I watched and the one Vernon had in mind)… and you can see the levels part here but honestly watch the whole thing because it's great
There's also this which is a bit more recent and he explains it differently to the first talk

55:11 - OpenAI's article on harness engineering

The chaps dig into another Keithism to see where it takes them.
Keith Klain published a blog post that drew a line in the sand for testers. His conclusion is blunt: there's a specific type of testing work that too many in our industry believe is our raison d'etre, while the market is rapidly reassessing its value (and not in a good way!).

Chapters
00:00 - Intro
01:12 - Welcome (may contain traces of Premier League banter)
03:00 - Who is Keith Klain and why should you listen to him?
06:30 - Checking vs testing: what's the actual difference?
12:00 - Keith's warning: AI is coming for the…
12:56 - The CEO has one job…
14:04 - …and they have two ways to do it
15:31 - If your value isn’t the amount of tests you’ve executed, what is it?
19:42 - Richard's updated AiT principle: shared understanding over assumed understanding
23:53 - Shift left is more than "test the requirement first"
27:18 - The ways your perceived value is constantly moving.
31:57 - Maaike's stance: what if you refuse to use AI entirely?
34:09 - Too big to fail? What AI investment really means for the industry
39:53 - The skill no one taught testers that now matters most
42:54 - "Become the insufferable AI person" and other survival tactics
45:22 - Keith's call to action
47:09 - Why no one at Test Coast said "risk" when asked why they test
51:01 - AI summaries as input to other AI: the risk nobody designed for
54:00 - How one bad step ruins everything
55:27 - Statistics, Hugging Face, and the skills testers need to learn next
57:43 - There’s more than one way to “be technical”
59:54 - A rallying cry from Rich to the testing community
01:04:00 - Forward-deployed engineers: just a QE by another name?
Links to stuff we mentioned during the pod:
03:00 - Keith KlainKeith's blog Quality Remarks
The blog post that triggered this episode: "Checking isn't testing. Soon it won't be employment either."
Keith's LinkedIn

19:33 - ELT stands for Executive Leadership Team aka The C-Suite. The folks who have job titles like Chief Executive Office (CEO), Chief Technology Officer (CTO), etc.
20:00 - You can find Richard's AiT Principles hereAnd you can listen to his new ideas about those principles in Episode 33 “Six Principles of Automation in Testing: Still Relevant in 2026?”We’ll add a link to the talk as soon as we can

27:18 - Vernon's Credibility Playbook
27:18 - Vernon’s upcoming Agile Testing Days talk “If Testers Had a Dragon’s Den Pitch, Would Anyone Invest?”DM Vern if you’re interested in going as he might be able to help… 😉

32:00 - Maaike's LinkedIn post Vernon referred to during the episodeYou should subscribe to her blog too

34:14 - John CutlerJohn’s newsletter
John’s LinkedIn

37:26 - Simon WardleyIf you're not following Simon Wardley, please follow Simon Wardley! His work on Wardley Maps and situational awareness in strategy is essential reading
Simon's LinkedIn

46:38 - Rapid Software Testing (RST) is the methodology created by James Bach and Michael Bolton.
47:12 - The Test Coast Conference where Richard delivered a keynote
49:44 - Vidya Ranganathan’s fanbloodytastic post about the different kinds of risks we should be consideringVidya's LinkedIn

56:48 - Hugging FaceThe Hugging Face website
The Wikipedia page

"Testing Is Not a Specialism" - You keep using that word…
Vernon got triggered. A bold LinkedIn post declared "PSA: testing is not a specialism. Thank you for your time." Mic drop, walk off stage, no explanation. And it wasn't just one person. So Vernon did what any self-respecting tester would do: he asked why. And didn't get an answer. In this episode, Vernon and Richard dig into why some developers seem to find the idea of testing as a specialism genuinely laughable, what happens when you confuse a skill with a role, and why, in a world where everyone's building agentic workflows, nobody seems to notice that they're writing skills.md files full of testing knowledge. They also explore how AI is already reshaping what's expected of every role on a software team, why "knowing what good looks like" has never mattered more, and what skill stacking means for testers who want to stay ahead of the curve.

Chapters
00:00 - Intro
01:17 - Vern's welcome rant
01:42 - The topic: Is testing a specialism?
07:17 - Rich gets a chance to speak 😅
07:29 - Good Testers vs Bad Testers
11:15 - Aren't we all developers now anyway?
13:06 - There's testing and there's Testing
15:01 - Testers communicating their value
18:34 - If testing isn't a specialism, where does that leave agents and skills?
20:30 - The lads cook up a new way to reframe the situation
23:53 - Who should do testing?
32:27 - Vern believes these folks are saying one thing and doing another
35:02 - Rich wants to know what happens to the 0.5x Testers?
40:02 - Skill Stacking
45:36 - The thing most people haven't done but need to
50:04 - Are we all Domain Translators now?
54:23 - Wrap up

Links to stuff we mentioned during the pod:
01:42 - Paul's interesting LinkedIn post that triggered Vernon
03:34 - The question I asked on LinkedIn about why "people" get so triggered about testing as a role
05:33 - Greg's interesting post about test management and levels of competence
06:31 - Jade Rubick's post questioning whether QA should exist at all!
10:46 - Angie Jones (the only thing Angie is terrible at is being terrible!)Angie's blog
Angie's LinkedIn

14:11 - The episode When Everything Sounds Like Testing… How Do You Explain What You Really Do?
14:46 - Funnily enough, Vernon is giving this talk at Agile Testing Days 2026!It's called If Testers Had a Dragon's Den Pitch, Would Anyone Invest?
DM Vernon if you would like a discount code for the conference!

15:07 - The very cool GreaTest Quality Conference
27:25 - Jason Bourne a fictional character from some of the best movies ever (especially the first two ^VR)
28:29 - Anne-Marie CharrettThe excellent book in digital or physical versions
Anne-Marie's website
Be sure to check out the blog which is no longer pay-walled 🥳
Anne-Marie's LinkedIn

28:29 - James BachThe Test Jumper description we refer to
James' blog
James' LinkedIn

51:02 - Nate B. Jones (Shout out Martin for putting Vernon on to it 🙏🏾The post about developer roles mentioned in the episode
Nate's newsletter
Nate's website
Nate's YouTube
Nate's LinkedIn

56:52 - Vernon did write Vernon Version 3 - Now with added AI! all about the skills he thinks he needs to develop going forwardsPlease like, subscribe, and share 😊 ^VR

Got thoughts on whether testing is a specialism? We genuinely want to hear from you. Vernon still doesn't have an answer to his question. Run it past a friendly developer and let us know what they say. Drop us a message on LinkedIn and if Paul or Greg are listening, the invitation to come on the pod is very much open.

In this episode, Richard and Vernon explore the evolving concept of automation in quality, especially in the context of AI and Gen AI. They discuss how new technologies are blurring the lines between testing and quality, and what this means for the future of software development and testing practices.
00:00 - Intro
00:52 - Welcome and weekly catch-up
01:11 - Vern's deep dive into the AI rabbit hole
02:39 - Rich’s quit(er) work week, new threads, and dentists
04:15 - Richard buys a domain and we started the pod proper
06:09 - Tool idea #1: Using an LLM to evaluate user stories and acceptance criteria automatically
07:35 - Is analysing a story "testing" or "quality"? The ISTQB static analysis debate
10:27 - Vernon's diabetes analogy: AI is forcing us to finally do what we always said we should
12:19 - Better stories = better testing: how quality work amplifies everything downstream
13:11 - Tool idea #2: "If we made this change, what areas of the system would be impacted?"
14:23 - Distilling years of system knowledge into 5–10 questions an agent could ask
18:37 - Tool idea #3: The PR Analyser — summarising code changes through a testing and quality lens
21:45 - Vernon's "1 unit of effort, 5 units of testing" — the quality multiplier effect
23:29 - Comparing story analysis to actual implementation: where did understanding diverge?
24:43 - Tool idea #4: Dynamic test selection — cherry-picking the right tests to run first
27:05 - Tool idea #5: An agent that analyses failed builds and attempts to fix them
27:28 - Why Richard's first attempt always "fixed" the test instead of the code (and what was missing)
29:21 - Dan's AI agents: one thinking partner, one employee monitoring production
32:42 - The documentation goldmine: why AI-generated RCA notes might matter more than the fix
33:39 - Tool idea #6: A holistic quality dashboard pulling insights across stories, code, tests, and process
36:43 - John Cutler on context: it's not data you pass around — it's formed through interaction
40:43 - More options than ever: whether it's testing, quality, or static analysis — you can do it differently now
41:56 - The real skill: spotting the opportunity to make yourself more effective
42:30 - Ge Hill's Lump of Code Fallacy and why task analysis matters
43:34 - Why Richard got into automation: efficiency, not because he was told to
45:03 - Vernon's big question: in a world where agents can do everything, what's your performance review about?
46:52 - Context, craft, and product knowledge can't be delegated to tools yet
48:29 - Call to action: What are you building? What tools couldn't you build before that you can now?
49:29 - Upcoming: Test Automation Days and PeerCon Live in Nottingham
Links to stuff we mentioned during the pod:
04:15 - Automation in QualityRichard bought the automationinquality.com domain! The concept explored throughout this episode.

05:28 - Kalpesh Sodha aka KalpsShout out to Richard's colleague who played devil's advocate on the "is it testing or quality?" question

07:31 - Static analysis
29:44 - Dan "The Agile Guy" ElliottHis post about how he uses AI agents as a "thinking partner" and an "employee" with different missions and capabilities
Dan’s website
Dan's LinkedIn

36:52 - John CutlerJohn Cutler's piece on how context isn't just data you move around — it's formed through interaction between people
John's newsletter
John's LinkedIn

42:37 - Rob SabourinMy quick Perplexity search for Rob's public material on Task Analysis
Rob's Linkedin

42:45 - Michael “GeePaw” HillHis Lump of Code Fallacy. The idea that coding isn't just one activity — there are three flavours of work that occur when you code
Michael’s website
Michaels Mastadon

49:35 - Test Automation DaysRichard will be keynoting at Test Automation Days
Make sure you say hi if you’re there

50:10 - PeersConVernon and Richard will be recording a live episode at PeersCon!
If you're there, come say hi and grab a mic 🎙️