Nicolas Avena

About Nicolas Avena

I’m a CSPO-certified Technical Program & Product Leader with 10+ years of experience delivering digital transformation across the energy and SaaS sectors. I bring a unique blend of upstream operational knowledge, SDLC and QA leadership, and global program execution on complex, high-stakes platforms.At SLB, I owned QA and release strategy for critical software products, coordinating cross-functional, globally distributed teams, aligning with diverse stakeholders, and designing scalable delivery frameworks grounded in Agile methodologies. Beyond the resume, I bring a strong work ethic, a deep respect for collaboration, and a naturally friendly, approachable attitude. I thrive in environments where everyone has a voice, because the most groundbreaking ideas are often sparked by a diversity of thought. Led programs across North America, LATAM, and global distributed teams.🧠 Currently enrolled in the Postgraduate Program in AI & ML at UT Austin McCombs. Passionate about driving innovation with empathy, process discipline, and a bias for action.Let’s build something meaningful together.

Experience

1. Digital Products Program Lead, Quality and Release

   SLB

   Sep 2022 — Present · Houston, TX, US

   Led a global QA team ensuring quality and reliability across multiple software solutions in drilling automation, AI-powered analytics, and cloud-based platforms.• Defined and implemented QA strategies, improving test coverage, release efficiency, and backlog prioritization in Agile environments.• Orchestrated an incremental and iterative test strategy, along with a complete refactor of the general regression plan for ConnectBHA, addressing architectural and key functionality breaking changes. This optimized test coverage and defect detection, leading to Software Release 24.4 achieving minimal field-test issues. The improved QA process enabled a streamlined deployment for commercialization, significantly reducing bug-fixing, testing, and deployment time, saving substantial engineering hours and project costs.• Collaborated with Product Managers to prioritize features and refine product specifications, ensuring alignment with real-world drilling and operational needs.• Optimized testing workflows, increasing operational efficiency and improving global team collaboration across Houston, France, and China.• Orchestrated end-to-end testing strategies for major product initiatives, including- DrillOps Data Aggregation - DrillOps Predictive Analytics - DrillOps OneRD - SLB LWD integration into DrillOps - Migration to Plugin for tools workflows

Education

• Tecnológico de Monterrey

  Full Stack Web Development, Computer Science

  2021

• Tecnológico Nacional de México campus Hermosillo

  Engineer's degree, Mechatronics, Robotics, and Automation Engineering

• Texas McCombs School of Business

  Postgraduate Degree Candidate, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning