Takudzwa Chidobera

Takudzwa Chidobera Phone number: (- (Mobile) Email address:- ABOUT ME Detail-oriented IT professional with strong experience in software testing, digital payments, and financial technology. With a background as a Payment Systems Engineer and hands-on expertise in Postilion Realtime, Portal, and Office, I offer deep insight into transaction flows, system integrity, and quality assurance. I have successfully led and supported major initiatives, including system certifications, core banking migrations, and cross-platform payment solutions across Southern Africa. Collaborative and quality-focused, with a passion for delivering defect-free systems in agile environments. WORK EXPERIENCE  ELECTRONIC FUNDS TECHNOLOGY (EFT) – HARARE, ZIMBABWE PAYMENT SYSTEMS ENGINEER – 01/10/2019 – CURRENT • Design, test, and implement payment system solutions in collaboration with business stakeholders, architects, and QA teams. • Lead and support UAT cycles, including writing and executing test cases, logging defects, and coordinating resolutions with development teams. • Plan and execute system upgrades and patch management, performing regression testing to ensure continued functionality and compliance. • Investigate transaction issues, system errors, and connectivity failures, using root cause analysis to drive longterm resolutions and prevent recurrence. • Integrate and test payment platforms with external systems such as POS, e-commerce, and mobile applications, ensuring seamless interoperability. • Collaborate with cross-functional teams (developers, testers, analysts) to gather requirements, validate system changes, and implement enhancements. • Monitor and analyze system performance, identifying bottlenecks and optimization opportunities to improve transaction throughput and reliability.  SYMBOLS CARD TECHNOLOGY (SCT) – ACCRA, GHANA QUALITY ASSURANCE TECHNICIAN – CARD PERSONALIZATION – 01/11/2018 – 26/09/2019 • Performed rigorous quality checks on payment cards to ensure alignment with predefined standards and client specifications. • Verified data accuracy and personalization output as part of the production validation process. • Monitored production processes and identified errors, taking corrective action to maintain high-quality standards. • Managed sensitive cardholder data with strict adherence to security and compliance protocols. • Maintained detailed production records, including quality control reports, supporting traceability and audit readiness. PROJECTS 01/05/2025 – CURRENT POSTILION ACTIVE-ACTIVE IMPLEMENTATION (POSB) • Develop and execute failover and recovery test cases simulating various real-world failure scenarios (e.g., node crashes, network partitions, application failovers) to assess the resilience of transaction processing and ensure seamless service continuity. • Verify real-time data replication and synchronization between primary and secondary Postilion instances across geographically separate data centers, ensuring transactional consistency under high-load conditions. • Conduct integration and regression testing of Postilion transaction modules, including POS, ATM switching, and ISO message handling, to validate functionality across both nodes in an active-active setup. 07/03/2025 – 22/05/2025 MASTERCARD PAYMENT INTEGRATION CERTIFICATION (POSB) • Designed and executed comprehensive test cases and scripts to validate POSB payment terminals against MTIP certification standards, ensuring adherence to global payment security protocols. • Coordinated and managed the Level 3 certification process with FIME, a globally recognized testing laboratory, to certify PAX A920 Pro, Verifone X990 POS terminals and NCR ATM's for EMV Level 3 compliance. 01/04/2025 – 13/06/2025 ZIPIT 3.0 ISSUING AND ACQUIRING PROJECT (CBZ & POSB) • Spearheaded the end-to-end testing process for the implementation of Zipit 3.0, a next-generation real-time interbank payment solution introduced by Zimswitch, focusing on both issuing (customer-initiated transactions) and acquiring (merchant/receiver processing). • Designed, documented, and executed comprehensive test cases and scenarios to validate new system capabilities including transaction initiation, switching logic, settlement, reversal, and dispute handling. • Led testing of API integrations between the bank’s core banking system, the switching platform (Zimswitch), and third-party service providers. 17/08/2024 – 13/11/2024 CORE BANKING MIGRATION – T24 to FLEXCUBE (NBS MALAWI) • Supported the successful migration of NBS Malawi’s core banking system from T24 to Oracle Flexcube, focusing on the seamless integration and validation of card and account based transactions between the Postilion switching platform and the new core system. • Worked closely with QA and business teams to develop, review, and maintain test cases and scenarios that validated the complete transaction lifecycle from initiation on ATM/POS terminals through Postilion to final posting in Flexcube. • Performed system integration testing (SIT) and end-to-end testing to validate real-time transaction routing, account mapping, balance updates, and field-level integrity of ISO 8583 messages flowing between Postilion and Flexcube. EDUCATION AND TRAINING 07/06/2013 – 01/11/2017 Gweru, Zimbabwe HONOURS DEGREE IN COMPUTER SCIENCE Midlands State University Final grade 2.1 01/09/2022 – 01/10/2023 Nairobi, Kenya ALX SOFTWARE ENGINEERING ALX Africa Field of study Backend Specialization 10/12/2023 – 03/02/2024 CERTIFIED IN CYBERSECURITY ISC2 SKILLS Card Issuing & Acquiring Functional & Regression Testing EMV/MTIP Certification Root Cause Analysis Test Case Design & Execution Failover & Recovery Testing POS/ATM Channel Testing ISO 8583 Message Validation Postilion (Realtime, Portal, Office) Agile Collaboration User Acceptance Testing (UAT's) Python Java GitHub SQL C JavaScript REST APIs Time Management Self Learning UL Test Tools