The Software Tester’s Journey with Nicola Lindgren and Vernon Richards

In a land of testers far and widely journey seeking answers, seeking skills, seeking a better way O the Test Illumination Testing Podcast Guiding testers with our nation awesomeness from ancient realms to modern days, they lead the way. Oh, the testicle of nature Testing Podcast.

Hey, do you want to know how to advance your career in software testing? If so, you're in for a treat because today we have Nicola and Vernon joining us to talk all about the Software Tester's Journey, a new book that they published. They're both awesome experts as well, so we're going to dive into probably all kinds of things, but mainly focus on this book if you don't know Nicola is a Platform Manager based in Sweden, is an international conference speaker, prolific blogger, lifelong learner and testing, agile and leadership. She also has a pretty cool YouTube channel as well that we'll have a link for down below. And she has experience as a test coach, test analyst, test automation engineer, test lead and she started meetups in I think it was Australia and Stockholm and software testing courses, runs workshops, mentors testers. She knows all the things, so really excited to have her on the show. We also have Vernon Richard joining us who is a quality coach and tester. He helps teams improve products by linking quality with software testing. He's also a senior expert or senior software Quality engineer and runs Adobe of Quality, a platform focused on quality and testing. He presents a bunch of different conferences, leads training workshops, blogs and co hosts the Vernon Richards show and the both authors of the book the Software Test's Journey. Really excited to dive in. You don't want to miss it. Check it out. Hey, before we get into today's interview, I want to share with you today's sponsor Browser Stack. They have a brand new test management AI driven full stack test management solution for creating, managing and tracking all your test cases and test runs. And if you were to look at the popular G2 review site for evaluating business software, you will see that this is a leader in the test management G2 grid report browser stacks. Test Management provides AI powered test case creation and execution so it helps you with simplifying tests and tool consolidation into one platform, reducing the total cost of ownership by minimizing licensing costs. It also helps improve QA productivity by providing a modern, fast and intuitive user experience. You also get actionable insights across all your testing efforts. It's purpose built for test automation. Test Management provides real time reporting with automation frameworks. You can also easily import your test data from your existing test management tool using their UI based wizard or by uploading a CSV file. You can generate test cases with AI by providing a prompt or requirement doc. For more context, AI will generate test cases across scenarios with all test cases categorized. Review and add the relevant test cases. This will save you a significant amount of time and effort. It instantly converts existing test cases into automated scripts using their integration with Browser Stack. Low Code Automation with integration to BrowserStack's Test Observability Platform, you can also improve test automation stability by detecting flaky and always failing tests and debugging failed tests up to 95% faster. Using this approach, you can add various devices and launch a browser Stack live session directly from Test Management. Test Management also provides a two way sync with Jira and 50 plus integrations with various project management and CIC tools and test automation frameworks. Get a high level overview or drill down details of your test cases and test runs through a rich dashboard. Monitor historical data automation coverage metrics and testing trends. All right, so support the show. Try it out for yourself. Let me know your thoughts by trying browserstack Test Management using that link down below. Hey, welcome to the Guild.

Thank you. It's great to be here.

Hey Vernon, Greetings. Thanks for having us on. Appreciate it.

Awesome. Yeah, great to have you both here. All right, so I'm just curious to know anytime anyone writes a book like who came up with the idea? How did you decide to kind of peer author it? What's the genesis of it?

Yes, it was my idea. I came up with idea, I think sometime in mid to late 2022. And I approached Vernon because there were certain topics that I thought the book had to do that I didn't have enough knowledge or experience in. And given Vernon's experience, but as well as I thought his interest in career as well, I approached him and said, hello, would you be interested in running a book with me? And fortunately he said yes.

So have you known each other before that? Yeah.

Okay, well I. I mean he might have not remembered when we first met, but we met at Test Bash 2016 and then I think you might have crossed paths a few other times, but at least that's a definite time I remember.

Yeah, you were. I think you were in New Zealand at that time. So you travel a long way.

No, no, I was. I had already moved to Sweden. No, no, that's my bad. Yeah.

Ah, okay. Because I'd been following you since you were in New Zealand. So yeah, I kind of knew you a long time but I hadn't met you before. So.

Good old Twitter. Yeah.

So Vernon, what Are your thoughts when someone, when she approached you, said, hey, would you like to write a book?

Easy. Yes. So Nicola had written a book called how to start your software testing career. And it was very good, it was very cool. And so when she said, look, I'm there, I want to write another book because there's some other topics that I would like to cover, it was an easy. Yes. Because we seem to have a similar mindset on how we saw software testing careers. We were both writing a lot and creating a lot of content at the time. So it was just. It was super easy.

All right, so why a book on this topic then? A lot of times people don't think testing's a real career or they think it's like a stepping stone. Why a topic on, you know, testing, software testing for careers?

For me, I thought there was a gap in the market for this while. Yes, maybe people think that it's a stepping stone towards other careers and such. It is actually a career that many people do take seriously and it's for those people. But then we also do have a chapter in the book which talks about moving away from testing and talking about how people use the skills they've gained in testing to move on to other parts. Because I guess, like, with any career, not just with testing, sometimes people do something for a few years or 10 years or 20 years, and then they make a transition to something else. So we wanted to think about that journey. People go on.

So, yeah, so for me, somebody, I think it was back in 2022, somebody asked me this question. They were like, okay, so I've been a manual tester. I'm doing air quotes if you can't see that. Doing. I've been a manual tester for a period of time. What do I do next? Like, where can I go next? So I started to talk a lot about that. I wrote a couple of blog posts about it and then I turned that blog post into a presentation. I delivered that as a keynote once or twice. And so I already had some ideas in that direction. So when Nicola approached me saying, oh, I want to write this book about careers, I was like, of course I'm going to help you write that book, because that's what's on my mind right now. So, yeah, love it.

And Nicola, you're a platform manager. So did you make that transition from a tester to, like, management? And what was that like?

Before, I was a quality engineering manager and then it was platform manager due to reorg. So the role was changed for me and I guess the change in, if I'm talking not specific to platform management at managing people would be the shift in perspective. So thinking more big picture thinking not necessarily about testing itself always, but having a bit more insight as to how people proceed testing. So I had this when I was working as an IC in teams or individual contributor in teams. I remember being like, testing was like the main focus. It was the star of the show always. And then I remember thinking, why don't people care about testing quality? And I cared a lot of, I still care about quality, don't get me wrong. But I could somehow take it personally in a weird way when people didn't care about testing quality as much. And then when you take a step back and you see, okay, testing is a part of software development and then there's a push for features, you see that any extra testing or when you want extra resources or people, the egg money that comes with it, the way testing is perceived. So people may think only of test cases or only bugs or people thinking that more testing means that you're going to find all the bugs. That insight has been, I think, the most interesting for me.

Absolutely. And so I think you dive into all these topics, but the book is broken into, I think, nine chapters. The first one is career choice for testers and you do have one on managing expectations and managing up. So I guess let's set the field here. What are the career choices for testers?

Oh, so this is the world according to Vernon. Okay, so bear that in mind. But I think the way I think about it is there are like three different dimensions that impact this the most. One is the technology, one is people and one is the business. These are the things that determine where our focus is in the job. So as Nicola was just saying, you could have quite a people focused approach and so that might take you down the leadership or the management direction. You might be someone like yourself, Joe, who's like, I'm very much into technology, so I'm going to get deep into the tooling and how, and what does the architecture of this thing mean and how are we going to implement this solution, etc. And then you can have a more business focused product focus. How are we making money from this thing? And then depending on where the emphasis is, and it is more of an emphasis because I don't think you can really ignore any one of those three things completely. I don't think you'll get very far if you completely say, I'm just going to ignore technology and focus on people and money. You're not going to get far. So it's more of an emphasis, but depending on where your emphasis is, will dictate which kind of role that you take. So I'm very much on the people side. I think if I had to pick one of the three, I'm much more of a people person. But I like all three of those things. So I think that's what has helped me achieve whatever success I've had in my career has been able. It's been because of that appreciation for. I like people, but I have an appreciation for the technology and I have an appreciation for the fact that we have to make money. Like there's a. The business. The role exists to serve a particular audience and the more you can tie what you're doing in testing to that, the better.

Well, I 100% agree. Do you see that as a roadblock? A lot of people don't emphasize the value that they're bringing to a project and therefore when it does come time to cuts or layoffs, they're like, these people never advocate for themselves. What the heck are they doing? Get rid of them. I don't know if that's too harsh, but that's what I see sometimes a wonder.

I think something similar. So I don't know if the decision makers are having in their head is these people never advocate for themselves, so they're out of here. It's probably more they look at the landscape as they're making a decision about we need to go forward less people who needs to be on this ship to keep it moving and able to weather any storm because we're going to have less people. So who are the people that we've got to have with us? And if you haven't done a great job of articulating your value, that might reduce your odds of staying on. But you know, it's not a matter of always being able to talk your way into or out of these situations because maybe a company just doesn't need somebody with your skill set. So I don't want anybody to think that they have failed in some way because they've been laid off or made redundant. I've just been made redundant. I got made redundant a month ago. Happily, I've got myself a new job now. But being made redundant is not, I don't think necessarily it says anything about you as an individual, but you can use it as a learning opportunity to say, okay, how could I have avoided this if that is the outcome that I wanted? And then you can start to think about how does what I do impact the business and how can I articulate that narrative so that people understand it and my value is clear and apparent. I hope that made sense.

Yeah, I feel like with redundancies and picking people, the impression I also get is how is it perceived on shifting the responsibilities to other people and how doable that is. Because Vernon, you know, illustrated that, let's say you currently have a hundred people, we need to get down to 70. And you're trying to figure, okay, which 30 people are you, do you need to cut. But then what comes to my head is also you're thinking, okay, with the people left, which roles are more likely to be able to absorb those others? So maybe with the developer they'll go, we can see that these developers absorbing the test responsibility, but then the other way around can be harder for people to imagine. And I found it was years ago for me with being laid off, but I remember the QA team was hit hard. And this is hard thing that would, even when you're advocating your value, it's this intangible thing where you're providing information, you're reducing risk. There's concrete deliverables that are harder to show compared to other roles. And then if you're going to talk about say preventing bugs, building a good process, I would also say the funny thing is if you're that good of a tester, you could make yourself seem like you're not as needed because you're that good. And that's like the double edged sword that you could end up in because they think, oh well, it's this highly skilled person here that we're paying this much for. And then you kind of forget. Actually, it's a short memory. The reason that things are going so well is because of all the work they've put in and all the glue work and then this bull work they're doing behind the scenes. And that part, honestly, it sucks.

There's this really good article. I can't remember the name of the woman who wrote it, but she was talking about being an sre. And the article was basically about what you just said, Nicholas, that when I am really effective at my job, nothing happens.

Like when I nail it when I crush it in my job.

Right? Yeah, right.

Nothing happens. And so the people are like, what are you doing? Like, nothing happened. You're like, exactly, nothing happened because I'm awesome. You're welcome.

So, you know, I think we've all mentioned we've been laid off at some point. I was laid off five years ago. Nicholas sounded like you were laid off at some point and burn, you were recently laid off. I know a lot of people are going through this, and I know it's tough, but how did you get a job so quick? I know other testers that were in the market for months recently, so happy to hear that you got a new job. Any tips for anyone that's in the same boat you were in? And how were you able to get the next gig?

Feeling blessed right now. So that is part of it, but I think a big part of it, ironically, because check this out. So we released the book the day we released the book, the following day I got made redundant. So it was timely because I could use the advice that we gave people in the book. And I think it basically came down to networking. It basically came down to being able to go to my peers and the people that I'd met in my network and say, hey, this is what's happened. Do you, you know, if you know of any openings fit me? So here's. Here are the problems that I like to solve, and here are the contexts in which I can really help solve them in. So if you know anybody with this kind of problem, let me know. And I was lucky enough, someone in my network alerted me to the lead and then they put me in touch and then it kind of went from there. So I think that was probably the number one factor. It's not that I'm some kind of bloody genius or anything like that. It was purely the network. And it's almost like leveraging. It's easier if you think about it. Difference between me looking on my own and then 10, 20, however many people scanning the environment. And I think that was the difference. And then also it's the difference between applying for a job by hitting a button on LinkedIn and one human telling another human that this other human is worth talking to. And that packs a punch. It's the difference between reading a Google review for a restaurant and me saying, hey, Joe, this restaurant downtown is absolutely amazing. You need to go check it out and you'll be, oh, okay, okay, fine, I'll go check it out. Like it's that kind of energy that you're looking for. And I was lucky enough to be able to make that happen for me.

That's a great point. I think in 25 years, I've only had one job where I actually just applied clicking a button. Everything else was through just people moving on and giving me a new job. So networking, like you said. So you have a whole chapter on this. It is Chapter six. So, Nicola, now you are a manager. Do you get hit up a lot like with weird approaches that may not be optimal for networking or do you have any suggestions? Someone is looking for a job, they think where you work looks interesting. How do you think helps someone to be a good candidate for a position at a company that they may want to approach?

So I could talk about what I get approached with and I could explain why it's not the best approach and then I could also share what I've seen that works. So I often get people approach me saying that I'm looking for a job and if I know of anything. And then we're not currently hiring at the moment and during those times we weren't hiring. When I said, when I replied to this message and I said no, we're not hiring, they then go, well, then come back to me or let me know when, when you're hiring. And I'm thinking to myself, well, I'm not going to remember this conversation. There's, there's nothing memorable about it. There's this, it's one of many. And then given the effort that was put into that conversation, I could also maybe assume that they pretty much sent the same copy text message to other hiring managers. What I have seen done well is some people, they show they've done the research in me and I like it. Doesn't like they see a article I shared on LinkedIn or something that I posted. They're specific as to why they want to work at the company, but at least there's some sort of a detail or effort that's put in. And I appreciate that with networking. One thing that I don't think Vernon explicitly said is that networking pays is like an investment. Because Vernon didn't just start networking when he needed a job. He's pretty much been networking this whole time, at least, like since I've known him, he's been networking since at least nine years, probably longer. So then I would advise people when it comes to networking to start building those relationships. Start, you know, messaging people, commenting on people's posts, say thanks for sharing, sharing with them a link saying, oh, I saw that you shared this. Maybe this other article you might find interesting because you want to give and take and then you also need to be top of mind because like, let's say an opportunity comes up and you start hiring. Like, let's say I started hiring tomorrow. I'm not going to remember some sort of interaction I had back in February or March about a candidate who could have been suitable Then you need to be top of mind. So it needs. Okay, but an interaction that happened like one or two months ago, I'm more likely to remember. So there's that combination of things. That's my two cents.

It's genius. That is absolute genius. Yeah. And if I can add Nicola touched on it there. Don't just show up and immediately say, I want this and I want this and I need this and you need to do this for me and et cetera, et cetera. That is not. You will be memorable, but for the wrong reasons. What you should do is, you know, the clue in social media. It's social. You know, the trick to networking is to be helpful and friendly and not overbearing. I think in the book I call it, you know, don't be an energy vampire. Don't just suck all the energy out of the relationship. Just be cool. Just be friendly with somebody and genuine. And then over the course of time that seed will grow into something real later.

100% agree. And I love how you said commenting on posts and things like that also putting yourself out there. I know both of you put yourself out there. You do a lot and I know you would actually ever mean either one of you. So if someone said, hey, do you know, blah, blah, blah, like, do you know Vernon? Do you know Nicola? I have a job open. I'd be like, oh yeah, they, they do this, this and this. I follow them all the time. That helps. So you're sowing seeds without even being in your face. Networking per se, just by contributing to the community, is that like a way you could do it? If someone's even more like introverted just now commenting on a post, you don't have to be very outgoing creating a blog post. Don't have to be very outgoing type.

Deal for commenting on posts, I think you'd have to do it frequently. Like you couldn't just comment once. But then for like writing a blog post, look, the quantity probably wouldn't have to be as much to feel known. So I remember if I wrote this explicitly in the book about lowering the risk threshold of hiring because like when you hire someone, you are taking a risk with a new person. And the way I think networking is so effective and referrals, which Vernon referred to is the risk is perceived to be lower because you're banking on the trust that a current employee already has or the friend of a current employee already has. But then when you're like, the way I see it, when you share your thoughts online of what you believe, then you Become more of like this known of like, okay, this is how they perceive things, this is what they believe. And I think that can work in your favor.

I couldn't agree more. I think in 2024 it's verging on mandatory that you have some kind of online paper trail, something along those lines. And Nicholas. Right. And I love that you said this show. There's a continuum at one end you can have a YouTube channel, you can have a blog that takes a certain amount of time and energy at one end and then at the other end you're doing absolutely nothing. So you being at this end is inadvisable. But commenting on stuff to me feels like the least energy draining and time consuming thing that you can do. And it absolutely helps if you're the person who takes an already good post from somebody. Could be on LinkedIn, it could be a blog, it could be a YouTube video, anything. And then you're adding an insightful comment or it could be something that makes people laugh or it could be anything. But you're contributing to the conversation in some way. That is more than enough because what you want is that association with. Oh, I've seen Joe commenting on these on such and such before. Yeah, he's, he seems like a smart dude. You know, that's what you. And that's all it takes to Nicholas point though will take a level of consistency. You can't just do it once in a blue moon. I think it's more effective to do it consistently, 100%.

So like I said, you have a whole chapter on networking your way to success. How's this different than chapter seven, which is job hunting. What is unique to job hunting?

Job hunting has an extremely specific goal that you're trying to achieve. Whereas like Nicola was saying, networking is just here's how you make connections with people and here are some ways you can do this ineffectively. Here are some ways you can do this effectively. And if you're, if you're not sure why this is a good idea, let's make the argument for why this is a good idea and then we will get into how you do it. Whereas job hunting is very much I am in hunter mode. Like I am. I need to get a job. Like I'm looking for a job for whatever reason. So here is some tips from us as people that have looked for jobs and people who hire people looking for jobs. So that's how I would describe the difference.

And we have concrete advice on first. So we talk about like how to network at events, what sort of events you could network at, things to be mindful of and then say, with the job hunting, there's specific advice on CVS, on cover letters, on your LinkedIn profile, how to optimize that, talking to recruiters and the different types of interviews that you could expect. Because I find it could depend slightly on the company size. But the expectations and what you're trying to achieve at each interview stage varies. Because if I was going to say, like, at the screening stage of recruiter, they've got a specific purpose they're trying to achieve and then the hiring manager has one and then there might be a team interview. So we talk about those specifics.

Absolutely. And I see them both entwined. Like you should see, look at yourself in the future. Networking. I was happily employed by Shared Information, not knowing that eventually I would be laid off and I'd have to go job hunting. So it's almost like laying the path or seeds out there that you never know what's going to happen from your network and that could lead to. To a job or you may be made redundant and then, you know, it makes your life that much easier with the job hunt. Sure.

And the good thing with networking is it's not just about, like, there's. You think there's a future self that benefits, but there's also your current network that benefits from your network and then your future connections. Because, like, for me, I like to connect people, so maybe I don't have something to gain, but I'm like, you should meet him and you should meet her and so on. And it's quite like being able to help create those, like, win, win situations.

Awesome. All right, so chapter eight is going independent. So why would anyone want to go independent? I'm independent now. Five years. It's kind of rough, but, like, why would you. When would this be a good option for someone?

You might feel like you don't have access to the levers that you want to make your life better. You might feel like you could earn more money by going independent. It usually is around that autonomy and agency piece, that perspective. It's like, well, I need more agency, I need more autonomy. I have this lot. I have a lot of experience and I have a lot of opinions and maybe I could have more influence if I went independent and I was hired as a freelancer. You've probably possibly been in a company that's had that. You're working alongside freelancers. Think to yourself, wow, these people are earning way more money than me and they're doing the same job. But it's not all, you know, rainbows and parties and stuff.

There's unicorns.

Unicorns, yeah, rainbows and unicorns. It's quite different. And it's not for everybody. It has its pros and cons. So, yeah, that was the reason I did it. I did it because it felt like as a freelancer, you had more autonomy, and on top of that, you earned more money. And I was like, well, that's a pretty persuasive combination of characteristics. I'll go for it. But it's actually. There are some downsides, there are some cons. It's not all pros.

Yeah, this might be a lame. The reason why I love it is in my calendar from 12 to 1, the only thing I really have in my calendar is take a nap. And so you could do that if you're independent. I don't know if you could do that when you work full time, but that's the biggest benefit I've come up with in five years. Nikolai, any ideas? Have you been independent before? Is that something I haven't?

That chapter was over. I didn't have. I didn't have any insight on that. Sorry.

I mean, look, you can nap in the office if you wish. It just might be the last nap that you take in the office.

I used to nap in my car, but people would knock on it, try to wake me up. It was totally not flashing my mellow. So not optimal.

Your mistake was being too easy to find, Joe. You should have parked your car a little bit. You should have got in the car, drove a little bit away, and then had a nap and then driven back.

That's so true. So true. All right, so, you know, I never wanted to be a manager. I always wanted to be an automation engineer my whole career. Maybe that kind of impacted my career in some way. But say I wanted to leave the software testing field. I know. You have chapter nine. Any quick hits for people that are thinking like, you know, I love testing, but maybe I do want to test the waters somewhere else. Is there a way they could do without completely severing ties with testing?

So a trend we saw with people we interviewed for this chapter is that they did it at the company they were already in. And I would notice that they wouldn't just do that straight away. They just stop being a tester one day and start being something else another. They kind of transitioned in that direction. So talking about it with your manager and saying, you know, I love this company, but I would like to try something else, and sitting a timeframe around that saying, you know, maybe I could spend a few days doing this, maybe I could shadow someone else. And that's, I think is one way you can go about it. I remember at a previous company I was at, someone became a front end developer and it was over time their responsibility. Well, actually initially they just had extra responsibilities. They still had this, the daily test job and then they had extra responsibilities and then at some point they did, they were replaced in their team as they decided to full time be a developer. But yeah, talk about that, I would say talk about that with your manager because maybe there are opportunities that your manager are aware of that you might not know of yet. And the second thing is, you know, assuming that I'm going to assume if you're high, if you're valued and they want to keep you and they see a need for this role that you'd like to start trying out, then it could be a win win situation for both.

No, it's great advice. I know I worked for a large company a lot of times they had projects that you could start and people could like manage the projects and then you kind of get a feel for. If you want to be a manager, that's a good way to really up your management game and get seen in front of people, kind of a different role. So that's great advice, Bernie.

Anything you recommend, it's less of a recommendation and it's more of a rallying cry or trying to get people to realize that in their position as a tester, maybe you're the testing specialist in your team or whatever. Is that because of where you are in your role, you have the opportunity to build up a lot of transferable skills like a ton. Because you will have to communicate with people within your team and potentially outside of your team about the work you're doing and the impact it's having. Maybe it's a business impact, maybe it's a technology impact, maybe it's impacting other adjacent teams and things like that. There's the technology stack that you have to understand and so on and so on and so on. And so there are so many transferable skills that if you wanted to, you could take this in any direction that you like. I know that to me anyway, it feels like a more typical path that people take from testing is to go into development or into product. But frankly they could go in any direction that they wish. I believe I've seen people go from testing to SRE to developer to product and go all the way up the food chain in any one of those kind of directions. So, yeah, definitely it gives you such a good perspective that you can do anything. The challenge is, and this is where that theme that Nicola talked about is important, is that there is a perception that testers sometimes lack certain skills, which is why if you can take the opportunity to move roles within your company, you've already built up that credibility and that reputation with people that matter. And it's a safer. The stakes are not the same because these people know you and so you'll have more leeway and more support potentially than if you did it with a new company. So I think that advice to seek those opportunities out within your company, if you can make that happen, I think that's super duper wise. But you don't have to. If you go back, you know, the networking rears its head again. You know, if you can network with people and demonstrate that you have the enthusiasm and the determination and the wherewithal to make that work, then you can definitely leverage that with some networking in a different company.

I love the concept of transferable skills. I think a lot of people never take an inventory of all the skills they actually have and how they can apply everywhere. They kind of box themselves in.

Yeah.

Without going, wait a minute, I have these. I could be in this, this and this. These skills are the same. They're just in a different kind of flavor in this other role.

100%. And that's why I want to help broaden people's thinking to what is possible.

Love it. All right. And you have a bonus chapter called public speaking. I actually started this podcast almost 11 years ago to help my public speaking because I was terrified of it. I'm still doing it. So why public speaking? Nicola, any thoughts?

I would say we're probably all expected to public speak in our role in informal settings. And I would even say, like, just speaking in public. It could be retro updates. It could be a small presentation where maybe you went to a conference and you're presenting back. So I think it's a skill that helps manage the way you're perceived. So, like, it's one thing to be to have great ideas and you want to bring them to the team and you want to improve things, but you need to be able to bring people on board. And being, I feel, an effective public speaker gives you the ability to do that. It's one thing to have great ideas, but then if no one wants to listen to you, if no one, if you can't make communicate in a way that's clear enough to want people to Listen, then you know, your job will be harder. And then it also is a way to increase impact. So we have a chapter on, you know, like on promotion and stuff. And we do talk a bit about impact, but if you want to scale yourself, then you're probably gonna, at some point wanna talk to a larger group of people. So I thought it's good to share advice on how to go about doing that.

Love it. Vernon Nathan, to add there.

Yeah, it's the meta skill of distilling the message to share with somebody else. So when you're going to speak in public, you have to think about, well, what is it I'm trying to convey? What do I want to be different for the people that are going to hear this message or read this message or whatever? And then you have to construct it in some way and put it together so you can deliver it. And then you've got to practice it. And also all these meta skills that you don't even realize that you're building, you do that. And then the next time, next time you've got a demo, the product in a, in a retro, you are chilling. Like, you are absolutely relaxed. The next time you've got a, you know, because you've presented this thing to 50 people, 100 people, whatever. The next time you go for an interview and there's a panel of three people, you are chilling. It's like last time I talked about this, I did this. I did this on a, on Joe's podcast with however many gajillion people on the thing. I'm totally relaxed, I'm chilling. And so, and I think that's the thing that people don't anticipate. It's not even about going and being invited to all the conferences. It's about upskilling and improving your communication. And that's the thing that makes the difference almost irrespective of the context.

Okay, Nicole and Vernon, before we go, is there one piece of actual advice you can give to someone to help them with their software testing careers? And what's the best way to find contact or get our hands on the software tester's journey?

I got one. For the advice I would really think carefully about what are the things that energize you and what are the things that just drain you? Because that's a signal. It's not the only signal, but that's a signal about where, which direction you should head in next. And so be mindful of that. Try and be aware of what gives you energy or what is the thing that you could do with zero encouragement, zero persuasion. You just like, oh, I can do that. You just boom, you're in. That could be a signal about where you could take your career. That's my one bit of advice.

I really, really like what Vernon said. I would twist it a little bit for my advice and think about what makes you so effing special. So if you think about the skills you have, but then more importantly, think about the combination of skills you have and then work on like marketing that and this part of it's like what giving you energy. So if you talk about, say, learning test automation, that is a skill that's in demand, then you also have to think, if you're not as interested in that to set yourself apart, you're probably going to want to think about the combination you have. Okay, maybe you're good at test automation, you've learned it and you're also really good at talking to people and you're very likable, so you'd be a very effective glue person. Or maybe you're very good at understanding business. But think about that combination or what you really have to offer and focus on that.

Love it. And I'll have a link to the Software Testers Journey book down below as long with all the socials for Nicola and Vernon so you can really work on your networking skills as well. Thank you both for joining us today. Really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thanks for having us on. Appreciate you man.

Thanks again for your automation awesomeness. The links to everything of value we covered in this episode head on over to testguild.com a527 and if the show has helped you in any way, why not rate it and review it in itunes? Reviews really help in the rankings of the show and I read each and every one of them. So that's it for this episode of the Test Guild Automation Podcast. I'm Joe. My mission is to help you succeed with creating end to end full stack automation awesomeness. As always, test everything and keep the good. Cheers. Hey, thank you for tuning in. It's incredible to connect with close to 400,000 followers across all our platforms and over 40,000 email subscribers throughout the forefront of automation testing and DevOps. If you haven't yet, join our vibrant community@testguild.com where you become part of our elite circle driving innovation in software testing and automation. And if you're a tool provider or have a service looking to empower our guild with solutions that elevate skills and tackle real world challenges, we're excited to collaborate. Visit test guild.info to explore how we can create transformative experiences together. Let's push the boundaries of what we can achieve.

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