About Me
I'm Aaron, though I've gone by digicyc or DigitalCyclone online since 1998. My interest in technology has always been driven by the hacker mindset: take things apart, push past the abstractions, and understand how they really work. I grew up in a small town where a single T1 line provided the area's internet connection. At 15, I was lucky enough to work in a shop that was part RadioShack, part pager service, and the only local ISP. It was the perfect place to turn an obsession with computers and connectivity into hands-on experience.
After high school, I worked with the University of Utah's e-commerce class as its designated “evil hacker.” I broke into students' websites on the isolated class network to demonstrate why security mattered, with backups ready to restore everything afterward. From there, I joined Cisco Systems, where I helped design enterprise networks before becoming a team lead focused on escalations and training. I also built and hosted Linux-based tools to help the team solve common problems and validate designs.
Outside of work, I shared projects at local 2600 meetups—from building PBX systems to hacking PalmPilots into IP phones. That same curiosity eventually pulled me toward embedded development, where software has to meet the physical world and every layer matters. I love creating IoT devices, working close to the hardware, and following data all the way from a sensor to the systems that make it useful.
I started an IoT company and managed its technology for 11 years. My primary focus was Embedded Linux, along with diving into RTOS development to capture sensor data reliably and manage device connectivity. That included solving the practical challenges of maintaining a connection across dual SIMs in devices deployed beyond the comfort of a lab. It brought together the things that have motivated me from the beginning: hacking to understand, building systems that interact with the real world, and turning hard technical problems into dependable products.