Eddie Velez

Portland, Oregon (Remote)

AI Security & Infrastructure Engineer.

I build the pipelines and agent tooling that let security teams put AI to work.

Today that means leading AI security engineering at Cognizant: building agent harnesses for my team, automated tooling for our Security Operations Center, and the infrastructure to enable AI adoption across a 300,000-person company.

Plus I own and manage a private cloud (homelab) where I test the ideas I bring to work.

Say hello GitHub LinkedIn
Military police IT Security engineering Cloud security AI security
Eddie on a Seattle pier, mountains behind
it's me!

i'm notorious for taking notes in meetings and carrying around a notebook in the office.

The short version

Variety, on purpose.

I've never liked the idea of staying in one lane. Military police in the U.S. Navy, IT generalist, security engineer, cloud security lead, and now AI security engineering.

Every stop a different discipline, picked with purpose. What carried me between them: listening to the user, learning the technology at home, applying it at work the next morning, and writing everything down.

the variety habit goes back to high school where I enrolled in culinary arts and architectural design

from the Navy: attention to detail, curiosity, asking questions, and knowing what hard work costs

Now

AI Security Engineer, Cognizant

2025-present. Leading AI engineers across several timezones and educating them on how to build and deploy AI tools security teams actually use.

Solo work includes:

The company's first security-focused MCP server

Reads whole websites and extracts security indicators, visualized to show a program's attack surface. Used by the threat intelligence team.

The security team's first agent harness

Started as a passion project, this collects developer sessions as agent traces, reviews them for workflow improvements, and writes the improvements back so the next session loads them. Agent-agnostic, endpoint-based, and developers run it. Inspired by my homelab.

Attack-surface management platform

Reviews the company's externally exposed IPs, scans them and reports open protocols and vulnerabilities. AI & automation will recommend actions, predict outcomes, and automate responses. Built in-house for the security analysts at very low cost.

End-to-end CI/CD for the team on GitHub, Azure, and GCP

A MITRE MCP server for threat-intel mapping

Fine-tuned models and dashboards for external-exposure reporting

A ServiceNow issue-management workflow app

Skill, agent, and hook templates for Claude, Gemini, and Codex, plus mentoring engineers & developers across teams and countries on agent-assisted development

The team's infrastructure across GCP and Azure: PostgreSQL, BigQuery, Databricks, Kubernetes, RBAC and IAM

Off the clock, the same muscles run e661e.io: AI agents with traces and cost telemetry, a versioned knowledge base retrieved over MCP, an autonomous agent working issues overnight behind human gates.

Experience

Where I've been.

Beside the timeline, four coloured lines show what ran in parallel: military service, work, education, and volunteering. From 2012 to 2014 all four ran at once.

Read overlapping activities
  • 2009-2011: Navy active duty and an associate degree at Vincennes. Drug Education for Youth volunteering overlapped in 2010-2011.
  • 2012-2014: Navy Reserve and funeral honors, full-time study at Rutgers, freelance IT at IBRF, and NJPIRG food drives. Computer Data Source also overlapped in 2013-2014.
  • 2015-2017: Navy Reserve and an MBA at DeVry, alongside work at the Credit Union of New Jersey and then Jefferies.
  • 2018-2020: Security work at Jefferies, an M.S. in Cybersecurity at NYU, and fundraising with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
  • 2023-present: Security engineering at Cognizant and after-school math volunteering with Portland Parks & Recreation.

2020-present

Cognizant Technology Solutions

From M&A to Cloud Security, then Security Governance & Architecture

2025-present

AI Security Engineer · Senior Manager

Leading four developers across three countries, and sole developer on the attack-surface platform below.

Projects

  • The company's first approved security MCP server, and the security team's first agent harness (both above)
  • External attack-surface management platform: sole developer, nmap-cored, fed by multiple sources
  • The team's CI/CD end to end on GitHub, Azure, and GCP, and its infrastructure from PostgreSQL to Kubernetes

2021-2025

Cloud Security Lead Engineer

Led three engineers and a consultant deploying cloud security to 300,000+ devices in 40+ countries. Architected the whole program, down to every script, policy, and diagram.

Projects

  • Microsoft Defender + Azure security stack integrated company-wide, extended to 10+ businesses outside the corporate network
  • Next-gen endpoint proof of concept, templatized. It became a commercial offering for Cognizant's customers
  • SIEM dashboards for a multi-tenant, multi-cloud estate, plus handbooks and security training from analysts to the C-suite

2020-2021

Security Engineer, Mergers & Acquisitions

Met acquired companies and their founders, and brought 7+ acquisitions, from heavy-machinery automation to European IoT boutiques, onto the corporate network with monitoring and security coverage.

2016-2020

Jefferies Group

Global financial institution, New York City

2016-2020

Security Engineer

Owned the company's global endpoint security, then inherited the data-loss-prevention program and endpoint distribution. Subject-matter expert for anti-virus, EDR, and DLP.

Projects

  • Migrated the global endpoint platform through four products (Cylance, CrowdStrike, Symantec, Microsoft Defender), building dev, QA, and production environments for each proof of concept
  • Defender XDR architecture in Azure, plus PowerShell security and secure code-signing training for developers
  • Splunk dashboards plus Python and PowerShell automation to test malware samples and DLP policy triggers, and tuned configurations side-by-side with traders

2016

SOC Analyst

Hired into the security operations center and promoted to engineer within six months.

trained for half + full marathons in these years

2014-2016

IT Specialist

Credit Union of New Jersey

First financial-sector role: level-2 support at about 125 tickets a month, plus ownership of the infrastructure projects.

Projects

  • Started the virtualization program: staff moved to VMware VMs and thin clients, 99%+ uptime
  • VoIP rollout across six-plus locations with voice VLANs and site-to-site VPNs, and trained 150+ users
  • Websense Triton (DLP, email and web security) and Exchange on virtual servers with DAG

the homelab habit starts here: learn at home, apply at work

2013-2014

Junior Technician

Computer Data Source (CDS)

The hands-on hardware year: reconfiguring EMC and other server-grade systems for shipment at a data-center parts reseller.

2012-2014

IT Administrator (freelance)

International Brain Research Foundation

Freelance IT for a PhD-led research nonprofit on government contracts, while a full-time Rutgers student.

Projects

  • Active Directory and Group Policy administration, plus servers, email, and website upkeep
  • Onboarded staff on the brain-mapping software and its remote monitoring of brain activity

2007-2017

U.S. Navy

Master-At-Arms (Military Police)

2011-2017

Navy Reserve

Six years as a reservist, served alongside a full-time Rutgers degree and civilian IT work. Performed military funeral honors for deceased veterans, in uniform, representing the Navy.

2007-2011

Active duty

Patrolman, then section leader and patrol leader training junior sailors. Stationed around the world with an active Secret clearance. Bluejacket of the Year, one sailor per region.

The work

  • Law enforcement and security operations on base: 911 response, domestic disputes, theft, traffic and perimeter incidents
  • Random Anti-Terrorism Measures: building inspections, vehicle roadblocks, DUI checkpoints
  • Trained in small firearms, non-lethal force, emergency vehicle operations, small boat craft, and military and overseas law

before the Navy: food and beverage at Walt Disney World for the Fantasmic! show, 2004-2006, then retail at Planet Hollywood until enlisting in 2007, where the work ethic started

Skills

The whole toolbox.

AI & agents

MCP serversagent harnessesRAGMicrosoft FoundryCopilot StudioVertex AIGemini Enterprise

Cloud & platforms

AzureGoogle CloudKubernetesDatabricksBigQueryPostgreSQLLinuxcontainers

Security

endpoint XDR + policydata loss preventionthreat huntingsecurity architectureattack-surface management

Code & data

PythonPowerShellNode.jsSQL / KQLBash / CLIsAPIsHTML / CSSPower Automate

The homelab

e661e.io, a homelab run like production.

Outside work I run e661e.io, a private cloud on hardware I own, built the way I'd want a company's platform built.

One identity provider fronts every service, with passwordless enrollment and short-lived SSH certificates instead of static keys. Every host is provisioned by Ansible and every change lands through a pull request with CI on my own runners. An autonomous agent works tagged issues overnight behind automated review and a human gate. It's where I test the ideas I later bring to work and move my passion projects forward.

IdentitySSO on every service, heading passwordless
Observabilitymetrics on everything that moves, alerts to the phone
Automationinfra in git, deployed by pipeline
Knowledge & AIrunbooks + decision records, retrieved by agents over MCP
Storagenightly encrypted off-site backups, restores exercised
Securityprivate CA, secrets vault, scanners in CI

AI agents doing real operational work

e661e.io serves my friends, family, & community through educational & media services

Education

M.S. Cybersecurity Risk & Strategy · 2018-2020

NYU School of Law + Tandon School of Engineering, capstone on supply-chain security

M.B.A., Information Security · 2015-2017

DeVry University, Keller Graduate School

B.A. Information Technology, minor Psychology · 2011-2014

Rutgers University, finished in 2.5 years, while in the Navy Reserve and working

A.A., Associate of Arts · 2009-2011

Vincennes University, earned on active duty

Certified Quantum Security Professional (CQSP) · 2026

SISA Institute, ANAB accredited, valid through 2029 · verify

it started with an associate's earned on active duty, then three degrees in six years, all on veterans benefits

Recognition & service

Bluejacket of the Year, one sailor per region · Navy & Marine Corps Achievement Medal, twice · Good Conduct Medal, three times

Portland Parks & Recreation: runs an after-school program, tutoring kids in math, 2023-present

Drug Education for Youth: camp counselor for children of service members, 2010-2011

NJPIRG: organized food drives for kitchens, Rutgers years

Leukemia & Lymphoma Society: fundraising and awareness, 2017-2020

Off the clock

A few fun things.

Eddie waving at the camera at a marathon finish line
half + full marathons
Eddie above the terraces of Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu, on foot
Eddie in Navy dress blues with white gloves and a ceremonial sash
in dress blues

Say hello

Let's talk.

Looking for roles in AI and security to help teams adopt and secure their AI systems.

eddie@eddievelez.io LinkedIn GitHub / 00edd1e

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made in Portland, Oregon · eddievelez.io