Endpoint ft. Manish Verma: QA Mindset & Automation Myth

With over 16 years of experience spanning highly regulated sectors at enterprise giants like IBM, ANZ, Capgemini, and Infosys, Manish Verma has mastered the art of balancing Agile velocity with strict governance. A Test Automation Architect, Scrum Master, and Quality Engineering Manager, Manish is also the Founder of RCV Academy and Software Testing Mentor. Through his courses and content, he empowers thousands of QA professionals globally, bridging the critical gap between Agile delivery theory and practical, waste-reducing implementation.

We spoke with Manish to get his perspective on why chasing 100% automation is a trap, how to spot an over-engineered framework, and why the dedicated testing mindset is more vital than ever in the age of AI.

A Q&A with Manish Verma

1. What is one “textbook” testing concept you find yourself constantly having to un-teach students because it simply doesn’t survive in a real enterprise environment?

I’ve often met testing leaders who advocate for “100% automation,” yet many of them lack a clear understanding of what that really means or the actual value behind it. They push for automating every single aspect of a project, which is simply unrealistic and even if it was a possibility, it wouldn’t necessarily deliver meaningful benefits. In such scenarios, I keep explaining about the “100% automation myth” and helping people see the true purpose of automation. The real goal isn’t to automate everything for the sake of it, but to focus on automating test cases that provide a strong return on investment.

I always mention in my training: “test automation is not about chasing numbers, it’s about bringing real value to product and team.”

2. Your background spans highly regulated sectors. How do you architect a process that respects Agile velocity without compromising the strict governance required?

In my entire career of IT and working in both traditional and Agile development approaches. I have encountered many Agile projects where Agile was highly misunderstood and teams usually did WAGILE (Blending waterfall phases in Agile). To enable such teams towards true Agile and ensure that testing process respects agile velocity without compromising the strict governance, I had followed approaches like:

• Implementing “Three Amigos” concept
  
• Mentoring teams regularly on Agile ways of working
  
• Encouraging team to collaborate and break silo’s
  
• In-Sprint automation
  
• Embracing Test Pyramid
  
• Shift-left testing
  
• Having automated builds, BVT and Regression tests through CI/CD pipelines
  
• Exploratory testing within sprints
  

3. From your experience as an Architect, what is the specific signal that tells you an automation suite has turned from an asset into a maintenance liability?

I have encountered this issue at many places but I would like to highlight the project I worked on a few years ago. I joined a very big organization in Australia and the project team already had a selenium automation framework with a large number of automated tests.

The framework was over-engineered for no reason with over abstraction. Due to this, the time required to maintain the framework was much higher than the real value added by this framework.

The team kept automating the tests without analyzing the real value from those tests which eventually made the test suite very large and unmanageable. So, if an automation framework is over-engineered for no reason, it’s a signal that the team needs to simplify it if possible or get rid of it and prefer a 3 layered framework approach so it’s easy to maintain and actually get the benefit of having automation. The goal of automation is to enable testers so they can test fast and focus on areas where their testing mindset is actually required.

4. As an educator, do you worry that AI code generation is causing the “debugging muscle” of junior engineers to atrophy?

After deeply researching the capabilities of AI code generation, I must admit that AI coding agents are very useful in the Development and Automation space.

It’s also a concern for junior developers who blindly try to generate code and solutions without understanding the core principles of programming and tools.

So, from my perspective, AI is going to be a blessing for those who learn the basics, know the concepts and then use it. “Otherwise, it’s just shooting in the dark.”

5. Beyond technical skills, what is the single best non-technical indicator that a student will evolve into a true Quality Architect?

A true Quality Architect always applies a holistic approach to every problem they are trying to solve.

Asking questions like:

• WHY are we doing something?
  
• WHAT to do to achieve the outcome?
  
• HOW to achieve the outcome?
  

These questions help you to think and analyze before jumping to conclusions and this is a very important skill for Quality Architects.

Also, develop effective communication skills. Always be curious about new tools, techniques & processes and find ways to implement/showcase benefits in your organization.

6. With developers increasingly taking on testing responsibilities, how must the dedicated “QA” role evolve to remain indispensable in the next few years?

Dedicated QA/Testers exist because of the testing mindset. A person who is developing something will always be biased towards their piece of work and won’t be able to think of detailed edge cases and scenarios which a testing/QA professional can provide. The developers taking testing responsibility has most of the times backfired organizations.

As the AI landscape is evolving, testers need to augment AI capabilities like Generative AI, MCP, Agentic AI along with core technical skills and ways of working to remain indispensable in the next few years.

(Responses may have been edited for clarity.)

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Join us in celebrating Manish Verma and the incredible work of all the developers, builders, and product leaders who are pushing the boundaries of technology. Stay tuned as we continue to spotlight more leaders in our Endpoint series.