Why I left a Six-Figure Cybersecurity Job to Chase DeFi

HackathonsEthGlobalWeb3DeFiPersonal Journey

In September 2023, I left a high-paying cybersecurity role to dive into the uncharted world of Web3 and DeFi—a leap into the unknown that shaped the next few years of learning, exploration, and connection.

DevConnect Istanbul 2023

DevConnect Istanbul 2023

My journey kicked off in Istanbul at DevConnect—overwhelming from the start. Dozens of talks, workshops, and events happened simultaneously, and all my careful planning vanished on day one. The first speech, Battle of L2s, was a punch in the face: the ecosystem had grown enormously over the past eight years, and there was so much to explore. I dove into networking right away—after all, what else do you do at your first conference?

Five days, 943 conversations, and 400+ new connections later, I found myself at EthGlobal, a hackathon buzzing with builders, flashy stickers, and hands-on challenges. Real awards for exploring and innovating with Web3 tools - I got hooked! Although, I didn’t ship anything, my mindset was flipped!

My first win at dAGI hackathon

A few months later in Brussels, just before EthCC week, I joined a hackathon and teamed up with a cool Italian builder. We worked through the night to create an autonomous AI agent with its own wallet powering DeFi actions. Our project earned third place—and a major boost in my confidence!

EthGlobal at EthCC

This time around at EthGlobal, I decided to ship no matter what—and to build solo for the challenge. My project aimed to mint NFTs on Base, where I had no liquidity, by leveraging the liquidity I had on Arbitrum via Chainlink’s CCIP. It worked, but lacked novelty, and I didn’t win (beyond reclaiming my stake). Still, the experience only fueled my excitement.

Check out Remote Minter showcase on EthGlobal & source code on GitHub.

EthGlobal Bangkok 2024

By the time EthGlobal Bangkok came around, my excitement for DeFi was through the roof. So I sought out two like-minded folks in EthGlobal’s discord and we joined forces to tackle a project whose results spoke for themselves:

EthGlobal NYC

I headed to New York City knowing the tools I’d use—but not exactly what I’d build. I was 99% set on experimenting with Uniswap v4 and its novel hooks. After pivoting through dozens of ideas, I landed on one midway and won third place—my first solo hackathon victory.

EthGlobal Buenos Aires

I hoped to top the Uniswap v4 hooks track in NYC, but fate had other plans. I ran into a friend and joined forces on 1inch’s novel Aqua shared-liquidity protocol—and boom, we built a working privacy-preserving DeFi system