About
I run IT in a real-world manufacturing environment, build security tools to understand how they work, study cyber security at MSc level, and have spent years translating technical ideas into something people can actually understand.
The story so far
The ground floor
Started hands-on in a manufacturing SME and learned how the business actually works before trying to change any of it.
Marketing
Moved into marketing: the website, SEO, content, exhibitions and product launches for technical B2B products.
IT
Took on IT alongside marketing: infrastructure, endpoints, Microsoft 365, backup and the relationship with the MSP.
A new site's network
Helped design the networking room for a new manufacturing site, then physically built it: cabling, racks and the backbone.
Security— current
Monitoring, triage, DNS security and building tools, alongside an MSc in cyber security.
No skill bars
A progress bar saying “Networking 82%” tells you nothing. Everything below says what was done and at what level.
- Professional experience
- Done in a paid role, in production, with consequences.
- Hands-on project
- Built or practised on something real that I own.
- Study and labs
- Done in a lab or range, not in production.
- Current learning
- Being studied now. Not a claim of expertise.
IT
SME IT management
STATUS: DAY JOB
Evidence:
- → Day-to-day IT for a UK manufacturing SME
- → Infrastructure troubleshooting across network, endpoints and cloud
- → Working with a managed service provider (MSP)
- → Deciding what to own in-house and what to escalate
Professional experience
Network architecture
STATUS: IN PRODUCTION
Evidence:
- → Firewalling and routing at the network edge
- → Managed switching and business Wi-Fi
- → VLAN segmentation
- → Guest networking kept apart from business traffic
- → VPN remote access
Professional experience
Endpoints, patching & Microsoft 365
STATUS: DAY JOB
Evidence:
- → Endpoint management
- → Patch management
- → Microsoft 365 administration
- → Identity and access considerations
Professional experience
Backup, encryption & DNS
STATUS: IN PRODUCTION
Evidence:
- → Backup strategy for business systems
- → Endpoint encryption
- → DNS filtering as a preventative control
Professional experience
New-site networking backbone
STATUS: DELIVERED
Evidence:
- → Helped design the networking room for a new manufacturing site
- → Physically built it: cabling, racks and the networking backbone
Professional experience
Cyber security
Incident response
STATUS: PRACTISED
Evidence:
- → Endpoint alert investigation
- → MDR incident triage
- → Legitimate activity validation
- → Escalation to MSP when required
Professional experience
Security monitoring & EDR / MDR
STATUS: DAY JOB
Evidence:
- → Endpoint protection backed by managed detection and response
- → Reviewing detections and deciding what is real
Professional experience
DNS security
STATUS: IN PRODUCTION
Evidence:
- → Protective DNS filtering in a business environment
- → DNS as an early, inexpensive layer of defence
Professional experience
Protective DNS engineering
STATUS: BUILDING (ALPHA)
Evidence:
- → Self-hosted protective DNS resolver, open source under Apache-2.0
- → Blocks known-malicious domains using public threat-intelligence feeds
- → Experimental, alert-only behavioural detectors
- → Published threat model, assurance notes and documented limitations
Hands-on project
Secure software development
STATUS: PRACTISED ON DNS DADDY
Evidence:
- → Static analysis of AI-assisted code
- → Security review and testing of generated implementation
- → Vulnerability discovery, fix, re-test
- → VPS hardening for self-hosted services
Hands-on project
Threat intelligence
STATUS: INTEGRATED
Evidence:
- → Public threat-intelligence feeds integrated into DNS Daddy
- → False-positive handling and allow-listing
Hands-on project
SIEM experimentation
STATUS: EXPERIMENTING
Evidence:
- → SIEM deployed and explored in a lab
- → SIEM-friendly exports from DNS Daddy
Study and labs
Vulnerability scanning
STATUS: HANDS-ON
Evidence:
- → Vulnerability scanning and interpreting the results
Study and labs
Ethical hacking & cloud labs
STATUS: LAB WORK
Evidence:
- → Ethical hacking labs and cyber ranges
- → Azure and Linux lab environments
- → Security research alongside MSc study
Study and labs
Risk, governance & secure systems
STATUS: STUDYING
Evidence:
- → Risk and professional practice studied at MSc level
- → Incident response and secure systems as taught subjects
- → CISM-related professional development (studying, not certified)
Current learning
Marketing
Web, SEO & content
STATUS: DAY JOB
Evidence:
- → Website management and development
- → SEO for technical B2B products
- → Content that explains technical products plainly
Professional experience
Social, email & analytics
STATUS: DAY JOB
Evidence:
- → Social media and LinkedIn
- → Email marketing
- → Analytics, to see what actually worked
Professional experience
Exhibitions & product launches
STATUS: DELIVERED
Evidence:
- → Trade exhibitions
- → Product launches
- → Working with agencies
Professional experience
Brand & technical B2B marketing
STATUS: DAY JOB
Evidence:
- → SME marketing for Polymer Compounders
- → Technical product marketing, including Notoxicom
- → Brand development
- → Translating technical products into marketing people can follow
Professional experience
Building
Personal tools & micro-SaaS experiments
STATUS: EXPERIMENTS
Evidence:
- → Small applications built to learn and to solve my own problems
- → Self-hosting on VPS and small-board hardware
Hands-on project
Current mission
Continuing to develop deeper practical experience in cyber security, particularly defensive security, SecOps and security engineering, while bringing substantial real-world SME IT and business experience with me.
I'm not changing career overnight. I've spent years working where technology, business and communication meet, and security is where that road has been heading for a while.