Security
- Working on
- Product security reviews, identity governance, and security engineering.
- Impact
- Built PayPal’s security engagement program in 12 weeks and deployed identity governance for 5,000+ users across 300+ applications.
Selected work
Work that shipped.
PayPal
01/05
12 weeks
PayPal
Cybersecurity Engineer Intern
Introduced PayPal’s first shift-left security front door, taking it from concept to company-wide production. Led Product Change Reviews for customer-facing payment and AI features across security, privacy, and risk.
PayPal
Official company post
Featured on PayPal’s LinkedIn.
PayPal posted their intern wrap-up to the company page. I was one of the two people in the coffee chat.
View the post on LinkedIn
By the numbers
- Best Buy nationwide ranking
Top 0.00%
Best Buy nationwide ranking
- users on Entra ID IAM at Clyde
0+
users on Entra ID IAM at Clyde
- PayPal program concept to production
0 wks
PayPal program concept to production
- National Cyber Scholar, 45,000+
Top 0%
National Cyber Scholar, 45,000+
Experience
Roles and projects
Product security, IAM, and security engineering.
Cybersecurity Engineer Intern
PayPal · Business Information Security Officer Group/Security Consulting
May 2026 to Aug 2026
- Built PayPal's company-wide Early Engagement program from concept to production in 12 weeks.
- Led Product Change Reviews for customer-facing payment and AI features across security, privacy, and risk.
- Product security
- Security consulting
- Workflow design
- Stakeholder alignment
IAM Security Engineer
Clyde Companies
Feb 2026 to Present
- Deployed Entra ID Entitlement Management for 5,000+ users across 300+ enterprise applications.
- Built Microsoft Graph, PowerShell, and Azure Logic Apps automation for access-review workflows.
- Microsoft Entra ID
- PowerShell
- Microsoft Graph
- Azure Logic Apps
AI Software Engineer Intern
Insurity · Hartford, CT
Oct 2025 to Jan 2026
- Designed and deployed ML models for Sure BaaS billing, payments, and policy management.
- Delivered AI proofs-of-concept adopted by product leadership.
- Python
- Angular
- .NET
- Azure DevOps
- SQL Server
AI/ML & Security Research Engineer
EdMe · IIT Bombay Incubator
Jun 2025 to Present
- Lead security strategy for AI/ML pipelines with GDPR, COPPA, and DPDP compliance embedded into workflows.
- Built hybrid AI systems with hallucination mitigation and Neo4j knowledge graphs.
- Neo4j
- MongoDB
- LangChain
- GDPR
- COPPA
AI/Robotics Research Lead
UT Dallas, HBS Laboratory · Richardson, TX
Jan 2025 to Present
- Lead an 8-person team building a socially assistive humanoid robot with real-time navigation and computer vision.
- Python
- OpenCV
- Raspberry Pi
- Arduino
Mathematics Instructor
Mathnasium · Sunnyvale, TX
Nov 2023 to May 2024
- One-on-one and group instruction across algebra through calculus.
- Instruction
- Curriculum design
Technology Sales Consultant, Computing Lead
Best Buy · Garland, TX
Oct 2023 to Present
- Ranked top 0.01% nationwide. Advise SMB and enterprise clients on cybersecurity risk and cloud adoption.
- Tableau
- Power BI
- Cybersecurity advisory
IoT Research Intern
Rice University · Houston, TX
Jul 2023 to Aug 2023
- Built IoT data pipelines in Rust with real-time streaming for distributed sensor networks.
- Rust
- IoT
- Streaming algorithms
Community
Coding Central
Founder & President
Free STEM education for 5,000+ students. Partners include Microsoft, Google, Adobe, Garland ISD, and Kenyatta University.
Community
Garland ISD
CTE Panel Member
Cybersecurity, IT, and AI curriculum for 50,000+ students.
Community
Cardily
Head of Product & Strategy
AI-enabled healthcare platform, including AED mapping for underserved communities.
Community
Stanford University
Section Leader, Code in Place
Mentored a global cohort through Stanford's introductory CS program with weekly Python instruction.
Project
Thevenin AI
Co-Founder and Security Engineer
AI STEM Solver used internationally. Built the security layer: Firebase Auth with RBAC Firestore rules, Secrets Manager vaulting, rate-limiting on LLM endpoints, and Cloud Run input validation.
- Firebase
- Cloud Run
- Firebase Auth
- Secrets Manager
Project
Wayanad AI & Data Center Park
Strategy & Infrastructure
Regional AI and data center park with government stakeholders on policy, land use, and infrastructure. Designing cloud, compute, and sustainability architecture for research, startups, and workforce development.
- Cloud architecture
- Infrastructure planning
- Policy
Project
SOC Lab
Personal lab
Multi-VM Security Operations Center with Splunk SIEM on AWS EC2, Suricata IDS, and pfSense firewall. Adversary emulations mapped to MITRE ATT&CK with custom correlation dashboards.
- Splunk
- AWS EC2
- Suricata
- pfSense
- MITRE ATT&CK
About · Dallas, TX
About
Build a career in cybersecurity: product security, identity, and systems that protect people and organizations at scale.
The spark
I was three when my father, a Senior Network and Security Engineer at 3M, first took me to his office. Monitors, cables, and the hum of the server room stuck with me.
What started as curiosity about keyboards and blinking lights turned into building robots, troubleshooting Linux on a YouTube channel at ten, and eventually a career in engineering and security.
Building in public
I launched Itz Josh on YouTube to walk through networking and Linux problems in plain language. Later I published The Digital Odyssey, which hit #1 New Release on Amazon.
In 2022 I started Coding Central to give students the kind of mentorship I wished more people had access to. Partners now include Microsoft, Google, Adobe, Garland ISD, and Kenyatta University.
Now
I am a Computer Engineering student at UT Dallas (Collegium V), National Cyber Scholar, and ISC² CC certified, graduating May 2027.
Outside class I keep building: research on campus, products and non-profit work, and consulting through JJZAC.
How I think
I am the person who takes things apart to understand them, whether that is a network trace, a piano piece, or a policy question about AI deployment.
Security is not a checklist. It is understanding how people and systems actually behave, and designing for that. I care about responsible innovation, especially where AI meets regulated environments.
Education
B.S. Computer Engineering
The University of Texas at Dallas · May 2027
- Collegium V
- Academic Excellence Scholarship
- Concentration: Information Security & AI
- CodePath Cybersecurity
Certification
ISC² Certified in Cybersecurity
Writing
Dallas, TX
Get in touch
Available for remote and hybrid cybersecurity roles. Pick a time or reach out directly.
- GitHub
- github.com/jzachariah0