I lead teams. I still build.

I'm a cybersecurity leader who enjoys getting hands-on with technology, figuring out how things work, and finding better ways to get things done.

I build for curiosity, learning, and occasionally because doing something manually for the tenth time bothers me enough to automate it.

Most of my projects involve infrastructure, networking, security, automation, AI, and performance optimization. Some solve actual problems. Others start with a simple question: Could I make this work?

• Automation: Reducing repetitive work, removing friction, and building repeatable processes.
• Homelabbing: Experimenting with infrastructure, networking, security, and systems architecture.
• Performance: Benchmarking, profiling, and optimizing rather than assuming something is faster.
• AI-assisted engineering: Using AI to accelerate research, implementation, testing, and documentation.
• Continuous learning: Trying technologies I haven't worked with before and understanding their tradeoffs.

I don't approach projects as a full-time software developer. My background is in networking, cybersecurity, systems engineering, and technical leadership.

I can script, program, troubleshoot, and work through architecture decisions. Increasingly, I use AI-assisted development to turn ideas into working systems.

My general approach:

1. Understand the problem.
2. Start with the simplest solution that meets the requirements.
3. Automate what can reasonably be automated.
4. Test, benchmark, and validate the results.
5. Document what worked, what failed, and what I learned.

Many of my projects use AI tools, including ChatGPT and Codex.

I believe in being transparent about that. AI may assist with code generation, refactoring, testing, documentation, or research, but I remain responsible for the requirements, architecture decisions, review, and validation.

The goal isn't to generate more code. It's to build useful, maintainable solutions and learn along the way.

You can find my experiments, tools, and ongoing projects in the repositories below.

Website: Ben Davis Builds
X: @brd651

Always learning. Usually building. Preferably automating.