Meet Paul, Cyber Engineer.

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My job is to keep the business secure.

I’d had a number of tech roles at Capital One before I moved into the Cyber Engineering team in 2018. I wanted to develop my coding and engineering skills and my knowledge of AWS. And I wanted to work full-time on engineering, rather than in parts as I had done in my previous role.

It’s been a massive learning opportunity. I’ve since improved my coding skills and code management practices in complex environments and I’ve learnt to set up and work with CI/CD pipelines to deliver code production in a more controlled way.

There’s a ‘Muck in and get it done mindset’.

The Engineering team is diverse with our spread of languages, architecture, security infrastructure and coding skills. We complement each other pretty well. There’s a real ‘muck in and get it done’ mindset when it comes to problem solving, which means I get the opportunity to learn from the rest of the team everyday (and hope they pick up a thing or two from me too.) The cyber security environment is ever-changing, and we have to stay on top of developments and new tools.

The coding experience here really stacks up.

I develop and deliver tools that other teams use to protect customers from malicious or accidental effects in the environment. That could be application firewalls or forensic logging. Recently I’ve been working on modifying an existing software stack to enable a true blue/green deployment. It’s been a great experience and a steep learning curve for me, but very rewarding.

I get a lot of freedom to use the best tools and select the language to design and deliver the right solution for the business need. Working in a regulated industry like financial services throws in a level of complexity, but for me that just makes the challenges more challenging.

Working from home is made so easy.

Getting the work-life balance right has become more important to me since I had kids. I do the school run every week and need some flexibility during holidays. I normally start early and finish early and have all the tech and tools I need to work from home. So I get the job done and collaborate with the team just as I would if I were in the office.