About Me
Senior Avionics Software Design EngineerHi, I’m M. Serdar Karaman. I live in Ankara, Türkiye, and work as a senior avionics software design engineer. I develop safety-critical software to DO-178C DAL A, the assurance level for software whose failure could be catastrophic. I started writing embedded software in 2016, while still at university, and I’ve been in avionics since 2019.
Most of my days revolve around requirements, C code written to MISRA C, Xilinx Zynq-based hardware, ARINC 429 and MIL-STD-1553 buses, and the test automation that checks it all. I also write DO-178C plans, standards and design documents, review code and documents together with my teammates, and try to help interns and new engineers find their feet. Before my current role, I worked on cockpit display software for a helicopter, swarm-UAV simulation and management software, and a portable ECG device.
I studied Electronics and Communication Engineering at İzmir Institute of Technology, then did a master’s in Software Engineering at Hacettepe University. Over time I’ve also earned two certifications in software testing and one in systems engineering:
- ISTQB Certified Tester Foundation Level (CTFL)
- ISTQB Certified Tester, Advanced Level Test Automation Engineer (CTAL-TAE)
- INCOSE Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CSEP): I wrote about the road to it (in Turkish)
Preparing for CSEP showed me how far the field reaches beyond the INCOSE handbook, and that’s one of the reasons I’m now doing a second master’s in systems engineering.
Outside work, I write here and on aviyonikyazilim.com, an open-source Turkish book on DO-178C; corrections and contributions there are always welcome on GitHub. I’ve been volunteering on Wikipedia since 2014. Together with a bot I wrote, I’ve made more than 220,000 edits across Wikimedia projects, most of them on Turkish Wikipedia, where I also help look after the site’s interface. My side projects are on GitHub, and a couple of them live here: Games and OR Tools.
If you work on avionics, safety-critical software, testing or systems engineering, or you’re a student finding your way into these fields, I’d be glad to hear from you. The same goes if you spot a mistake in a post or have an idea we could work on together. You can reach me through the Contact page or leave a comment under any post. My full CV is on LinkedIn.
Ancora imparo — I am still learning.