About Me
My name is Evan. I am a technology professional with over eight years of experience, primarily in cybersecurity. While some may see me as just an engineer, I am much more. I believe that having a broad range of abilities is an asset. As such, I am an intentional master of none and a firm believer that neither title nor role should be a barrier to exploring new things. I’ve backed up my beliefs by pursuing various majors in college, from Accounting to Economics, and finally, Computer Science. My career path has also been eclectic. Outside of my technical career, I’ve worked in retail, food services, landscaping, banking, and pastry decorating, before eventually moving into cybersecurity, application development, compliance, and technical project/program management. I also enjoy dabbling in both human and computer languages. I’ve lived in multiple US states and spent a couple of years in the Dominican Republic. Some may see my background as inconsistent, but I believe this diversity of experience reflects my growth mindset.
What’s the deal with “Evan Digs”? From my experience, it’s simpler to showcase expertise in a single area rather than multiple, unrelated fields. However, I enjoy exploring and delving into various new interests. Creating a site to document the diverse things I investigate and “dig” into is a great way to demonstrate my broad range of skills and knowledge.
My official CV can be downloaded below, but I’ve provided more detailed explanations of my experience and education in the next section, including details that don’t quite fit in a CV.
Experience
03/2020-04/2024
TrueCar, Inc.
After starting at TrueCar as a Security Engineer, I quickly advanced to Lead Engineer due to multiple successful projects and the acquisition of additional responsibilities. For instance, I revitalized the internal phishing exercises and bug bounty programs, and developed scripts and processes to address various compliance requirements. Additionally, I launched several new tools for email security, EDR, and vulnerability management.
In 2023, following a series of restructuring, layoffs, and attrition, I was given the opportunity to manage both the Security and Compliance teams. This challenging period allowed me to build a Security & Compliance team from scratch and serve as the Acting Director of Security & Compliance.
Ultimately, I decided to leave TrueCar to explore new opportunities where I can continue to be a leader and asset to a team while also having the space to develop my professional and personal skills in a more meaningful way
02/2019-03/2020
Capgemini
As a Cyber Application Developer and Researcher, I helped build a replacement to Lockheed Martin's Laika BOSS scanning system. This was primary accomplished using python in a RHEL environment. I quickly learned multiple Python libraries to build modules that would allow deep analysis of email, including recursive analysis of attachments, in order to provide security and threat intelligence teams with much needed data. Additionally, my final project in this role was to build out the SOAR solution, using Demisto.
10/2018-02/2019
LEARN Academy
Although this wasn't a job, I consider attending the LEARN Academy bootcamp a key period in my overall career experience. I quit my job at Leidos and decided to pursue hand-on experience with web development during the last semester of my Computer Science program. The bootcamp helped further expand my knowledge of frontend and backend web development, specifically in Ruby, Rails, REACT, and PostgreSQL. Additionally, I learned how to pair and mob program, present technical topics and discussions, and manage multiple small and large projects.
2/2016-10/2018
Leidos
Leidos was where I started what was supposed to only be a three-month security analyst internship, working in the SOC of their Commercial Cyber division (MSSP); I've been in security for 8 years now. Despite only starting off as an internship, I excelled quickly and was offered a permanent position as a junior analyst. Within about a year and half, I was offered the position of SOC supervisor, which quickly led to me taking on the role of acting manager. Leidos was an excellent place to kick off a career in cybersecurity. More Specifically, providing security services for federal agencies and fortune 500 companies provided countless opportunities to triage and investigate a wide variety of attack types and malicious payloads. I left Leidos to pursue a more technical path, since I felt like I had moved into a people leadership role quicker than I had wanted.
Education
2016-2018
University of Illinois Springfield
I earned by Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science after the 2018 fall semester. Attending UIS not only gave me the opportunity to continue my education, but it gave me the flexibility to accept an internship and full-time position in cybersecurity. This allowed me to expand my skill set across multiple technical domains beyond my curriculum.
2015-2016
Arizona State University
After attending MiraCosta for five years, it was time for me to continue my Computer Science program at a four-year university. I was accepted to several schools across the country, including the University of Oregon, Gonzaga University, and Rochester Institute of Technology. I ultimately decided to attend Arizona State University (ASU) because of the strong Computer Science program, the friends I had in Arizona, and my wife’s potential job transfer.
It was a fantastic semester. I attended some amazing classes and worked as a TA for a professor’s C++ class. Unfortunately, I only attended ASU for one semester because my wife’s job transfer fell through, and we didn’t want to continue living in separate states. Fortunately, the University of Illinois offered many flexible distance learning programs, including Computer Science.
2010-2015
MiraCosta College
Attending MiraCosta offered me an affordable way to pursue a quality education in Accounting, Economics, and Computer Science. This was incredibly valuable for someone like me, who didn't understand how higher education worked or what career path to follow.