Nikola Pavićević
Verified Expert in Engineering
Quality Assurance Developer
Nikola has a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science, significant expertise in system development and testing in the automotive industry, and general-purpose software development and testing skills. Strong technical skills in software and electronics development, along with cross-platform testing and QA process know-how combined with great soft skills, make him a good fit for technically complex projects—as an individual contributor or in a leadership or managerial role.
Portfolio
Experience
Availability
Preferred Environment
Python, System Testing, QA Testing, Automated Testing, QA Automation, Test Management
The most amazing...
...thing I've done was leading a 15-man strong engineering R&D team for four years with no internal or external turnover.
Work Experience
Senior Software Integration Engineer
Rivian
- Built and managed infotainment system bench setups for the team to ensure an efficient and effective working environment.
- Developed test plans for new feature integration to verify core functionality.
- Worked with software development teams and performed bench testing in the lab during feature development and validation phases.
- Collaborated closely with cross-functional groups to troubleshoot, isolate problems, and support root cause analysis.
- Supported vehicle-level feature verification and validation related to the infotainment system.
- Collaborated with the QA automation team locally to ensure a tight feedback loop.
Senior Test Lead
Toyota Material Handling, Inc - Main
- Ensured 100% test coverage and test bi-directional traceability.
- Introduced standards in test management and elaboration.
- Designed full system-level test suits for functionalities: vehicle interface adapter, connectivity manager, network manager, cloud communication, time services, power management, and thermal management.
Senior QA Automation Engineer
Symphony
- Acted as a consultant and set up a test strategy from scratch for Prolaera LMS.
- Set up a test strategy and toolset from scratch for the Mach149 SaaS platform using Playwright (TypeScript), Socket.IO, k6, Jira, GitHub Actions, Xray, Postman, and AWS.
- Introduced a different approach to automated testing location-wise using Playwright, mainly focusing on its built-in feature of multiple independent browser contexts.
- Set up continuous regression testing suite inside GitHub Actions CI.
- Created automated exporting of test results into test report files and exported them to Jira for an easier status overview for non-technical stakeholders.
Test Manager
Continental Automotive
- Managed discipline projects according to the company's established development and project management methods within the planned budget. Led and coordinated the team to meet the project and customer's timing and quality targets.
- Managed and optimized the use of resources on the project.
- Developed and maintained the Discipline Project Plan with cost, quality, risk analysis, and timing throughout the life of the project.
- Spearheaded the planning of tasks and assigning them to project team members.
- Coordinated and controlled project activities and assured they were in line with the project plan.
- Oversaw regular progress control of development activities and reported the status to the technical project leader and project manager to escalate issues.
Team Lead of System Engineering
Continental Automotive
- Provided and approved work package estimations and quotes for the team.
- Planned and monitored the execution of all activities and tasks to meet due dates according to the client's requirements.
- Assigned tasks to team members according to their internal function, competencies, and capabilities with the involvement of the direct superior when necessary to increase team performance.
- Organized technical training for automotive protocols, system testing, test techniques, and test automation on a worldwide level inside Continental VNI CE and VNI CCN business units.
- Contributed to the talent acquisition process. Conducted over a hundred interviews with several dozen successful hires while initiating and overseeing the creation of a written test for pre-interview screening.
- Developed a highly productive and stable work culture with low fluctuation (zero both internal or external after 600+ man-months) thanks to high employee motivation and satisfaction.
- Initiated, led, and contributed to multiple in-house projects, including ESCL test HW, multiple CANoe simulation improvements, and PASE antenna acquisition and conditioning board. Those solutions are being used in other Continental R&D centers.
- Oversaw multiple manual and automated HiL systems and other electronics laboratory equipment.
Lead QA Engineer
Foodvine
- Led the creation of a test strategy and test plan with the project team.
- Created test scenarios for manual tests to ensure optimal coverage.
- Automated regression testing using Python and Appium to ensure a shared test base for Android and iOS.
- Set up cloud-based testing (Experitest) to ensure test execution on multiple platforms, versions, and devices.
Infotainment Test Engineer
Audi AG
- Developed a test tools and scripts for integrating multiple relevant inputs (TA logs, communication bus logs, debugging output logs and display screenshots) for more precise defect detection using Python and MySQL.
- Served as the sole test engineer in system stability analyses covering entire portfolio of AUDI Infotainment systems using more than 30 active automatic test benches weekly.
- Contributed to Audi's business decision to outsource four positions to the P3 System office in Belgrade thanks to high performance and commitment shown.
- Automated test reporting for navigation and cross-application tests while providing much more information and statistics to test managers and function owners.
Automation Quality Assurance Programmer
P3 Systems
- Designed and developed a USB over IP server for remote or automated control of mobile phones used in infotainment system testing with Raspberry PI and Python.
- Developed level shifters for use in infotainment system testing.
- Built additional nodes and panels in CANoe simulation to significantly reduce the effort in testing the power management functionality of infotainment systems.
Experience
Mach49's 2401
https://www.mach49.com/what-we-do/growth-at-scale-2401Testing was split with manual UA testing executed during active spring test automation that was included in the regressions suit run by the CI/CD GitHub Actions pipeline. It was both API, which was aiming at 100% coverage, and E2E UI tests, which covered most user-relevant paths. Also, there were k6 load tests to test the AWS infrastructure set up.
XXM for Rivian R1T, R1S, and EDV
https://rivian.com/The testing was automated and included in the GitLab CI/CT pipeline, covering both low-level operating system-specific functionalities as well as end-to-end functionalities, including UI testing.
TMH DHUnx Telematics
https://manuals.plus/toyota/dhunx-controller-manual#axzz8TpYq8HJTThe test lead was in charge of creating the test strategy and test plans for each release and ensuring bi-directional traceability and requirement coverage. I also actively worked with the system design team on requirement refinement.
RSA EZ1 Zone Control Unit
https://www.continental-automotive.com/en-gl/Passenger-Cars/Architecture-and-Networking/Zone-Control-UnitsContinental is successfully driving forward the implementation of server-zone architectures in vehicles. The pioneering development and delivery of High-Performance Computers (HPC) are now followed by Zone Control Units (ZCU), another key component for the software-defined vehicle. Zone Control Units reduce vehicle network complexity and costs by supporting centralized architectures and the increasing separation of soft- and hardware. Additionally, they are a prerequisite for continuous updates, improvements, and function deployment services to support the transformation toward the software-defined vehicle.
Foodvine Mobile
PSA IDB Body Control System
Initially, my main contribution was automated testing. After a few months, I was put in charge of test management, which includes quotes and estimations (communication with the project manager, quality assurance, SW/EE/ME development, and production testing), creating and monitoring test strategies and test plans, monitoring and escalating resource topics, test task delegations, and mentoring of test engineers.
Nissan CMF-B HFM Access Control System
Initially, my main contribution was system testing, including a review of customer specifications, creating system test cases, maintenance of the test environment, test automation, test execution, and results logging.
After two years, I was put in charge of test management, including quotes and estimations (communication with the project manager and other disciplines such as quality control, software development, and communication directly with the customer), creating and monitoring test strategies and test plans, monitoring and escalating resource topics, test task delegations, and mentoring of test engineers.
MIB2 & MIB2+ Infotainment Systems
In the early phase of my involvement, I was part of the navigation and cross-application testing. My main contribution was developing test tools to integrate multiple relevant inputs as a means of defect detection, which was still (nearly two years after I left) in use the last time I checked.
USB Over IP Mobile Phone Server
Skills
Languages
Python, Python 3, JavaScript, C, C++, SQL, HTML, TypeScript
Tools
CANoe, Jira, Postman, Automotive SPICE, TestRail, JavaScript Testing, LabVIEW, MATLAB, TestStand, GitHub, Jenkins, GitLab, GitLab CI/CD
Paradigms
Automated Testing, Manual Testing, Test Automation, Agile, Functional Testing, Continuous Integration (CI), Scrum, E2E Testing, Non-functional Testing, Testing, Load Testing, Software Testing, Agile Software Development, Stress Testing, Azure DevOps
Other
Embedded Systems, System Testing, Automotive Testing, Test Management, Black Box Testing, Manual QA, QA Automation, API Testing, UDS Diagnosis, Quality Assurance (QA), Firmware, Regression Testing, Black Box Development, Test Cases, Test Case Creation, Test Case Development, Test Design, Quality Management, Leading Quality Assurance (LQA), Smoke Testing, Test Automation Frameworks, CAN Bus, Test Scripting, Quality Auditing, Quality Control (QC), SDET, Electronics, Rational DOORS, Test Planning, QA Leadership, QA Testing, Automated UI Testing, Embedded Hardware, Agile Software Testing, Software QA, QA Test Plan Management, APIs, Website Testing, Manual Software Testing, Cross-platform Testing, Mobile Device QA Automation, National Instruments, Functional Safety, ISO 26262, CI/CD Pipelines, System Design, System Architecture, System Architecture Design, Performance Testing, AUTOSAR, Firmware over the Air (FOTA), QNX, Architecture, Internet of Things (IoT), UI Testing, ISTQB, Digital Signal Processing, Digital Electronics, Communication Protocols, Mobile App Testing, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Agile Product Delivery, UDP, System Integration Testing (SIT), WebSockets
Frameworks
Appium, Selenium, Robot Framework, Flask, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Cypress, Robot
Libraries/APIs
REST APIs, Playwright, Jira REST API, Node.js
Platforms
Android, Linux, Windows, Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Industry Expertise
Automotive, Project Management
Storage
SQLite, MySQL
Education
Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of Belgrade - Belgrade, Serbia
Certifications
Certified SAFe® 5 Practitioner
Scaled Agile, Inc.
Certified SAFe® 5 Agilist
Scaled Agile, Inc.
Coaching
Ascendis
Leadership Developement Program
Ascendis
ISTQB Certified Tester
ISTQB - International Software Testing Qualifications Board
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