About

I’m Dave Shanahan, a software engineer with an affinity for Ruby and a history in cyber security.

My start in the tech field was as a cyber security consultant. Over an six-year period, I progressed to a senior level and worked for two well-respected penetration testing companies.

During this time, I led engagements and mentored juniors on a multitude of security assessments. I specialised in web application security so most of the engagements I performed were primarily web applications and web API assessments. However, I also completed other security assessments, such as internal infrastructure testing, mobile application tests, cloud configuration and network device reviews.

I transitioned into software engineering and joined a team working on a full-stack Ruby on Rails accountancy product that had been in active development for six years. Due to this maturity, the codebase was large, enterprise-grade, and leveraged older technologies, such as jQuery. Gaining a working understanding of the domain of this application was a difficult but rewarding experience due its scale of constructs and levels of abstraction. One of my main contributions was implementing two new company types which had deep reaching effects throughout the application.

After 18 months, I joined a team tasked with creating an internal sales platform for a CRM. This greenfield project allowed me to partake in the requirements gathering and design stages; learn and leverage modern technologies (Hotwire and Stimulus); and produce incremental releases of the application for client review.

In late 2023, I decided to set up my own company with the intention of producing a SaaS application. To supplement my income, I took contract work in the security field. Unfortunately, my business was not sustainable but I was thankful for the experience as I learned a great amount in terms of business and technical fields.