Xoel Rodríguez

It started with an old Acer laptop running Windows XP and a dust covered desktop with Windows Server 2003 at my parents' grocery distribution warehouse. They weren't fast, and they certainly weren't powerful, but for me, it was an infinite puzzle. I spent my childhood trying to understand how it all worked. That old hardware sparked a curiosity that never went away: I needed to know what was happening behind the screen.

That drive led me to the University of Santiago de Compostela, where I've turned that tinkering into an engineering discipline. Today, I operate at the intersection of software development and cybersecurity. I realized early on that these aren't separate fields; to build resilient architecture, you have to think like an adversary. To exploit a vulnerability, you have to understand the design decisions that created it.

My work is grounded in a belief that technology carries weight. Beyond the technical challenge of code, I am driven by the broader implications of the systems we build, advocating for privacy, open knowledge, and the responsibility that comes with digital engineering. Because at the end of the day, everything we create shapes the world we live in.