Shyamala Bai Kotin is a Principal Software Engineer with over a decade of experience in safety-critical avionics and embedded systems, currently pursuing a Doctor of Engineering in AI & Machine Learning at George Washington University.
Her career spans Flight Management Systems and Data Link platforms at Collins Aerospace and agricultural vehicle displays at John Deere. She has led end-to-end certification of safety-critical avionics systems under DO-178B and ARP4754A standards, achieving zero-finding TSO FAA certification and restoring production across a large fleet of avionics units through a flash memory migration initiative.
As a Principal Engineer and Product Line Cost Account Manager on the Bombardier Global 7500/8000 program, she led matrixed cross-functional teams, managed multi-million-dollar program budgets, and served as the technical interface with the FAA, driving resolution of regulatory and customer findings while ensuring full certification readiness.
She also developed an FMS Software Reviewer Training Program that standardized certification practices across engineering teams and led an enterprise-wide AI/ML capability development initiative spanning the entire Integrated Flight Avionics directorate at Collins Aerospace.
She holds an MBA from the University of Iowa, an M.Tech in Communication Engineering from VTU University, and certifications in PMP®, PMI-ACP®, and SAFe®. Her technical expertise includes C/C++, Python, DO-178B/C, ARINC protocols, CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, Docker), and model-based development using MATLAB/Simulink.