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Modern Engineering Executive · Strategic Advisory · SDLC Transformation

Mike Verinder

From boardrooms to bug hunters, I unpack how testing and the SDLC evolve. Three decades operating across software quality, dev tools, and the capital that funds them — most recently as Chief Community Advocate at Katalon, reporting to the CEO. Today I’m building Phaeto and Codemoor, running 400,000+ practitioners across a dozen-plus user groups, and shipping agentic engineering inside a modern enterprise.

Selected work → Get in touch
Mike Verinder
Allen, Texas
Now
Shipping agentic software engineering at Farm Credit Financial Partners.
Featured by
Mark Cuban Mark Cuban
Steve Wozniak Steve Wozniak
See the videos →
30+yr
In the SDLC
17yr
Rouge Advisory
400K+
Community across 12 groups
4
Companies founded
Track record

Three decades inside the SDLC — operator, founder, advisor.

The career arc that informs every recommendation I make. Operator on the inside at Katalon, Sabre, Cytracom, and SensorLogic. Founder of Rouge Advisory (17 years) and QAJuice. Advisor to roughly 20 venture funds and the testing companies in their portfolios.

  • Apr 2025 — Present

    Farm Credit Financial Partners

    Software Engineer · Agentic Engineering

    Building agentic software engineering practices into a modern engineering organization. Designing AI agents, RAG systems, and autonomous workflows — LLMs, vector databases, contextual retrieval — to accelerate engineering delivery and quality.

  • Aug 2021 — Sept 2024
    3+ years

    Katalon

    Chief Community Advocate · Reporting to the CEO

    Ran the Katalon Community. Advised Product and Marketing while infusing Community-Led Growth into the GTM strategy. 367% community growth during tenure; 105,000 members. Launched Katalon Academy, Discourse Forum, Education Program, and the Creator (Ambassador) Program.

  • Sept 2020 — Oct 2021

    Cytracom

    Director of Quality Engineering

    SDLC improvement targeted at customer retention. Inherited a 17.8% monthly churn rate; stabilized at 0.0023.

  • June 2014 — July 2020
    6+ years

    Sabre Corporation

    Senior Software Engineering Manager · Airline Solutions

    End-to-end testing and development across Airline Solutions. Oversight of all software testing tool acquisitions at Sabre, 2015–2019. Built international teams from scratch across Bangalore, New York, and Dallas. Shipped an internal AI-as-a-Service automation framework for E2E.

  • Aug 2010 — Jan 2012

    SensorLogic

    Director, Product & QA

    VC-backed Platform-as-a-Service in IoT. Successful acquisition exit to Gemalto. Day-to-day leadership in a startup environment.

  • Nov 2008 — Present
    17 years

    Rouge Advisory

    Founder · Advisory across product, GTM, community, and capital

    Selected clients: Applitools, Sauce Labs, Testim, Test Rigor, Perforce, Tricentis, Karate Labs, Katalon, Test Guild, Techwell, Druid AI, Yum Brands, JCP, T-Mobile, BCBS, TravelPort — plus roughly 20 venture funds.

  • Sept 2001 — Aug 2014
    13 years

    QAJuice

    Founder

    Quality consultancy. Fortune 100 clients including DFW Airport, Pizza Hut, Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, CenturyTel.

Show earlier career
  • 1999 — 2002

    BearingPoint

    Senior Consultant

    Led QA, production support, and development teams for Fortune 100 clients. Sold $18M+ in solution work. Designed and presented enterprise solutions.

  • 1997 — 1999

    Club Technology

    Implementation Consultant

    Implementation of POS systems for country clubs. Onsite configurations, quality management of release software, database maintenance.

Worked with · clients, employers, and partners
Applitools Sauce Labs Tricentis Katalon Perforce Testim testRigor Karate Labs Test Guild Techwell Druid AI Sabre Cytracom SensorLogic Geoforce Farm Credit FP Microsoft Accenture Sapient BearingPoint KPMG Rackspace CompuCom Travelport AT&T Verizon T-Mobile Sprint US Cellular Lumen Santander Drive Financial BCBS BenefitMall Dairy.com Yum! Brands JCPenney Pizza Hut Match.com DFW Airport
Plus engagements with roughly 20 venture funds across the SDLC and dev-tools categories.
Current projects

Operators stay close to the work. Here’s mine.

Two live products, the advisory firm, the podcast, and the community — the platforms I use to stay current with the practitioners and the founders building what comes next.

Product · 2026 · Live on App Store Founder & Builder

Phaeto

AI resume tailoring paired with warm-signal intelligence. Phaeto rewrites your resume against the posting and surfaces the warmest person in your network who can get it in front of a real human. iOS + web. Built it for a friend who’d just lost their job.

phaeto.com →
Product · Beta · 2026 Founder & Builder

Codemoor

Version control without Git. Auto-save, AI-agent attribution, and one-click undo on every change — no terminal, no commands to learn. Built for the founders, designers, and engineers shipping software through Claude Code, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible agent.

codemoor.com →
Advisory · Since 2008 Founder

Rouge Advisory

Boutique advisory for SDLC and dev-tools companies and the capital that backs them. Product, GTM, community-led growth, and operator-grade investor diligence. 17 years, including Applitools, Sauce Labs, Testim, Perforce, and Katalon among the names.

How I work →
The community

Where 400,000+ practitioners already are.

A dozen-plus LinkedIn user groups across testing, automation, and the modern SDLC — including the largest Selenium community on LinkedIn. This is where the testing market actually talks.

Selenium Test Automation User GroupFlagship
The largest Selenium community on LinkedIn
Modern Software — Playwright Test Automation
Browser automation, modern stack
Modern Software — Cypress Test Automation
Front-end testing community
Tricentis Tosca and qTest
Enterprise test management
Vibium
Mobile and web automation
DeepSeek AI
AI & ML practitioners
Puppeteer Test Automation
Headless browser automation
TestCafe Automation
JavaScript end-to-end
Ginger Test Automation
BDD-style automation
Dallas QA Subject Matter Experts
Regional practitioner network
+ 3 additional groups
Including specialty & emerging stacks

Distribution to the people who build, test, and buy software.

Senior engineers, QA leaders, automation architects, dev managers. Almost no one selling into this audience can reach them directly. The community is how I do it — and how the dev-tools companies I advise reach the market that matters to them.

45M+
Yearly reach
950K+
Leads generated for partners
300+
Marketing campaigns executed
Writing & analysis

Public thinking, for the people building and backing what comes next.

Industry analysis on capital flows in testing, where the SDLC is headed, and how AI is reshaping how software gets built, tested, and shipped.

The Testing Industry Has a Capital Allocation Problem
Industry analysis
The Testing Industry Has a Capital Allocation Problem
LinkedIn · 6 min read
 9 Testing Platforms And One Strategic Move That Could Accelerate Each Of Them
Market take
9 Testing Platforms And One Strategic Move That Could Accelerate Each Of Them
LinkedIn · 8 min read · 100+ reactions
 The Promise of Autonomous SDLC
Essay
The Promise of Autonomous SDLC
A vision for the future of software development
 Katalon SmartBridge Virtual Internship Program with AICTE
Press · Katalon
Katalon SmartBridge Virtual Internship Program with AICTE
11,000+ Indian students · Mike quoted as Chief Community Advocate
Featured talks, webinars & appearances
Trends in Test Automation 2023
Katalon Webinar · 2023
Trends in Test Automation — with Paul Grizzaffi & Rex Jones II
→
 The Impact of AI on QA Testers & Quality Engineers
Katalon Webinar · 2023
The Impact of AI on QA Testers & Quality Engineers — with Mush Honda
→
 Top Automation Testing Community Tips
YouTube · Community
Top Automation Testing Community Tips
→
 LinkedIn Selenium User Group Meetup with Andy Knight
Selenium User Group · 2022
LinkedIn Selenium User Group Meetup with Andy Knight
→
Modern Software Podcast

Long conversations with the people building the next SDLC.

Founders, technical leaders, and investors on where testing, dev tooling, and AI-assisted software development are actually going.

Modern Software
with Mike Verinder
Apple Podcasts ★ 5.0
04
Inside Autonomous Testing
with Marcel Veselka, founder of Wopee.io
1h 13m
03
Is BDD Dying? Did Low-Code Kill It?
with Andy Knight, the Automation Panda
35m
02
Autonomous SDLC: A Test Product Perspective
with Gal Vered, cofounder of Checksum
43m
01
Autonomous SDLC: Vibe Coding — A Developer’s Perspective
with David Robertson, Director of Enterprise Software
1h 17m
Featured by

Among those who’ve taken notice.

Personal video shout-outs to Modern Software and the work we do across the community.

Mark Cuban
Owner, Dallas Mavericks
Shark Tank · Investor
Personal video shout-out, 2022
Steve Wozniak
Co-founder, Apple Computer
Engineer · Author
Personal video shout-out
In their words

What CEOs, VPs of Engineering, and the people who’ve managed me actually say.

A representative slice of 25+ written recommendations on LinkedIn spanning 2008–2025. Notably from people who were senior to me and direct managers — not just peers.

“

Mike created and ran our End-to-End Quality Management practice for our Sabre Airline Solutions Business Unit — a unique and highly technical team built to show us the technical health of all our AS product portfolios with deep expertise in the Airline IT industry. He’s a capable leader. He combines Tech, People, and Strategy into building a culture. I would gladly work with Mike again.

Cem Tanyel
CEO & COO · Scaling $1B+ Technology, SaaS & Services · Trusted Board Partner
Senior leader at Sabre, where Mike ran E2E Quality Management
“

Mike is one of a kind — a genuine and caring leader. His strong intuition for leadership is compounded by a deep knowledge of Q/A, engineering infrastructure, and Agile methodologies. I worked with Mike at Cytracom and he immediately brought clarity to our teams, energy to our Q/A program, and was a breath of fresh air from an engineering standpoint. I highly recommend Mike if you need a focused and empathetic leader in your engineering program.

Pierce Brantley
Author, Speaker, Advisor
Mike’s direct manager at Cytracom
“

Under Mike’s leadership, the group has become the go-to destination for test automation professionals. He played a vital role in helping us promote our events to a wider audience, resulting in thousands of attendees worldwide. His professionalism, expertise, and commitment to excellence are truly inspiring.

Moshe Milman
CSO at Eon.io · Co-Founder, Applitools
Long-time Selenium community partner
“

I had the pleasure of working with Mike for 3 years while I was at Testim. Mike has built a large and engaged LinkedIn Selenium group where we worked closely to develop thought leadership campaigns to build trust within the software quality community. From evaluating product capabilities to proofreading material, Mike’s experience as an SME was invaluable to our campaigns’ success.

Francis Adanza
Former lead at Testim · Digitizing logistics
3-year community & GTM engagement
Plus 20+ more from CEOs, VPs of engineering, direct reports, peers, and clients across 2008–2025 · See them all on LinkedIn →
Also
Uncredited background work in The Last Champion (2020), The Madison (Season 2), and Lawman: Bass Reeves. Texas-based, working globally.
Contact

Get in touch.

The easiest way to reach me is LinkedIn.

Connect on LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/mikeverinder
→
Modern Software Podcast · Phaeto · Codemoor · Allen, Texas