What I do
I'm Paddy McCabe, a UK-based software engineer who builds pragmatic, maintainable systems that survive contact with production. I'm happiest where outcomes matter, constraints are real, and the "right" answer is the one that keeps working six months from now.
My day-to-day work spans application development, automation, security-aware design, and integration across platforms like Microsoft 365. I prefer requirements-first development: understand the process, identify the failure points, design the simplest system that will hold up, then build it with clear boundaries and sensible defaults.
How I work
I'm not a "framework collector". I care about clarity, trade-offs, and systems that are easy to operate. That usually means:
- Requirements and constraints first — especially where process, compliance, or operational risk is involved.
- Backend-first thinking — clean data models, reliable workflows, and interfaces that make sense to humans.
- Security as design — access control, least privilege, and visibility built in from the start.
- Documentation as a force multiplier — write down decisions, not just "how", so systems remain understandable.
Core capabilities
The work I'm most often pulled into sits across a few areas:
- Laravel and web application development — building production systems with maintainable structure and clear data ownership.
- Microsoft 365 integrations — using Microsoft Graph to connect identity, email, files, and tenant configuration into real workflows.
- Business process automation — Power Automate orchestration, approvals, and reducing manual hand-offs.
- Security-aware engineering — thinking in terms of risk, exposure, and operational reality, not just checklists.
- AI agents for real operations — applied AI that supports people and processes with guardrails and human oversight.
What I'm building and exploring
I'm particularly interested in the overlap between automation, identity, and security — for example using Microsoft 365 telemetry and Graph API to improve visibility and control across a customer environment. I'm also building and testing AI-assisted workflows (including agent-based approaches) that make operational processes faster without turning them into a black box.
Education and qualification
Alongside full-time industry work, I'm completing a Master's-level programme in Software Engineering. The academic work is focused on applied engineering — building systems, writing clearly about trade-offs, and demonstrating competence through real outputs rather than theory alone.
Where to next
If you want to see how I think, the best place to start is my writing. If you want to discuss software engineering, automation, security, or Microsoft 365 integration work, the contact page is the fastest route.