Pavankumar Jain Mandya Suresh

Embedded systems and server validation engineer with 15+ years of experience across storage, SAN/FC, BIOS/UEFI firmware, HBA driver validation, and server platform testing at Broadcom/LSI, Dell EMC, and QNAP. Demonstrated expertise in designing and executing test strategies, performing structured root cause analysis, and leading Tier-2 engineering teams. Hands-on experience with Fibre Channel SAN, iSCSI, NAS protocols, DAS/HBA firmware, BIOS/UEFI bring-up, and Python scripting for test automation.

Strong collaborator with a track record of working across architecture, firmware, OS, and customer engineering teams. Immediate joiner. ISTQB Certified.

Staff Engineer / Tier-2 Team Lead - QNAP Corporation of India Pvt. Ltd.

(2021-04 - 2026-03)

• Tier-2 Escalation & Issue Resolution: Served as Tier-2 escalation lead for complex NAS storage issues — including BIOS boot failures, RAID degradation, volume loss, firmware upgrade/downgrade failures, iSCSI connectivity problems, and BIOS settings causing drive or OS compatibility issues; performed structured log analysis and RCA before escalating to the Taiwan engineering team with detailed defect reports.
• Cross-site Collaboration: Collaborated with the Taiwan-based BIOS/firmware and development teams via technical calls, written RCA reports, and bug reports; reproduced customer-reported issues in-lab, isolated root causes, and provided actionable data to accelerate resolution cycles.
• Test Planning & Regression: Defined and maintained comprehensive test plans for NAS platform features, regression, and release sign-off; owned a 2000+ test case regression suite covering storage protocols, RAID configurations, and firmware behaviour across Linux and Windows environments.
• Python Scripting — Automation & Error Injection: Wrote Python scripts to automate HDP (Hot Data Protection) test workflows, error injection scenarios (disk failures, RAID degradation, recovery sequences), and regression test execution integrated with Jenkins CI/CD; scripting focused on test orchestration, log parsing, and reporting.
• QA Validation — HDP, Error Injection & Protocol Compliance: Performed end-to-end QA validation of QNAP NAS modules including HDP (Hyper Data Protector) workflows, error injection testing across storage subsystems (disk failures, RAID degradation, volume recovery), and protocol compliance testing for SMB, iSCSI, and NFS — covering functional, boundary, and negative test scenarios to validate correctness of NAS core modules.
• Code Coverage on Embedded Modules: Used gcov/lcov to achieve ~75% line and ~80% function coverage on critical embedded storage modules (HAL, iSCSI, SATA, NVMe); contributed coverage reports to the Taiwan development team for firmware quality improvement.
• Team Leadership & Mentoring: Led 10 Tier-2 engineers; standardised escalation workflows, RCA documentation templates, and knowledge-sharing practices; mentored team members in storage troubleshooting, systematic debug methodology, and structured test case development.

Software Quality Engineer II - Dell EMC (formerly EMC2 Corporation of India Pvt. Ltd.)

(2015-08 - 2021-02)

• Enterprise SAN & FC Storage Validation: Designed and executed test strategies for enterprise SAN storage features on VMAX/Symmetrix platforms running Hypermax OS — high-end FC SAN arrays supporting Fibre Channel host connectivity, multipath I/O, RAID groups, and LUN masking across large-scale enterprise environments.
• FC SAN Protocol & Replication Testing: Validated Synchronous, Asynchronous, Adaptive Copy, and Metro SRDF replication modes over FC SAN fabrics; verified failover behaviour, data consistency, and protocol correctness under normal and fault conditions — primary source of hands-on FC SAN experience.
• Firmware Lifecycle Validation (NDU/NDD): Performed Non-Disruptive Upgrade and Downgrade testing across Hypermax OS firmware versions on enterprise SAN arrays; verified host connectivity retention, multipath path stability, data integrity, and system continuity during live firmware transitions.
• Test Strategy & Spec Review: Reviewed functional specifications and user documentation from cross-site development and test teams; converted requirements into structured functional, boundary, negative, and regression test cases; managed defect lifecycle using OPT and CAT tools.
• Python Scripting & Reporting: Wrote Python test scripts and used SmartBuilder for automated SAN feature validation; produced structured test execution reports and release readiness dashboards for stakeholder and customer sign-off reviews.
• Cross-functional Collaboration: Worked with architecture, SAN fabric, OS, and customer engineering teams to define test scope, resolve interoperability issues, and validate storage features against design specifications using JIRA and OPT defect tracking.

Software Test Engineer II / Project Trainee - Broadcom Inc. (formerly LSI India R&D Pvt. Ltd.)

(2010-03 - 2015-04)

• BIOS & UEFI Validation: Validated SAS2/SAS3 LSI HBA BIOS and UEFI firmware across multiple server platforms — including option ROM initialisation, UEFI Base System Driver compliance (HII, SCT), driver load/unload, and OS installation in UEFI mode; hands-on experience with BIOS bring-up and platform integration testing.
• HBA Driver Validation: Validated LSI HBA firmware and OS drivers across RHEL, SLES, Windows, FreeBSD, and Solaris; tested driver installation, driver update procedures, and driver behaviour under normal and fault conditions across SAS, SATA, and SCSI protocol stacks.
• Customer OEM Integration Testing (CIT): Validated HBA BIOS, firmware, and drivers on customer OEM prototype rack and blade servers from Intel, Dell, IBM, and Lenovo; identified and resolved platform-specific integration issues across ARM, Intel, and AMD server architectures; participated in qualification demos and feedback sessions with customer engineering teams.
• Storage Protocol Validation: Validated FC, SAS, SATA, and SCSI protocol correctness at the HBA level; tested MSI-X interrupt handling, NCQ, queue depth settings, and end-to-end data protection in DAS configurations across rack and blade server platforms.
• Test Development & Mentoring: Developed Python automation scripts to improve HBA validation efficiency and test repeatability; mentored junior engineers in structured test design and debug methodology across offshore and global teams.

Bachelor of Engineering - Electronics & Communication - Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) (2005 - 2009) Belagavi