I've spent eleven years taking products from a first idea to something people rely on, most recently as founding engineer on two health-tech platforms at University College Cork.
I treat privacy and governance as part of the engineering, not paperwork afterwards. That matters more as AI moves into places where people are vulnerable. I now do this work independently, through rdelune.
Experience
2026 – nowFounder
rdelune
Engineering, privacy and AI-governance consultancy
I help founders and product teams get their architecture, privacy and EU AI Act readiness right before they launch, scale or raise.
- Technical consultancy to Karenua, the CommPAL spin-out, through its infrastructure and platform handover.
2022 – 2026Founding engineer & technical lead
CommPAL · University College Cork
AI decision support for palliative-care triage and nurse caseload planning. Spun out as Karenua in 2026.
I designed the architecture and led delivery across the clinical web app, the data platform, model integration and the AWS infrastructure.
- A regional data lake fed by automated hospital pipelines, with validation built in and patient identifiers hashed one-way.
- Partner data processed inside Australia on temporary infrastructure, torn down after each run, with only anonymised findings coming back.
- Agreeing data specifications with hospitals, clinicians, ethics and procurement before any patient data moved.
2019 – 2026Founding engineer & technical lead
MyUSE · University College Cork
A digital harm-reduction service for university students.
I took it from research outlines to a live service with more than 10,000 registered students, working alongside psychologists and researchers.
- Anonymous by design: returning students recover their session with a code only they hold, so nothing links them to a name or student record.
- A content system that lets the research team change the intervention without a developer.
- Chosen in 2025 as the digital tool for a Department of Health-funded programme bringing it to six Irish higher-education institutions.
2021 – 2025Lecturer (contract)
University College Cork
Taught Programming for Web Applications and Services 1 & 2 on the MSc in Design and Development of Digital Business.
Earlier
2018 – 2019Full-stack developer, TechsquadHelped rebuild QuickMinutes, a commercial SaaS product, and built a Python oracle node for the Wagerr blockchain.
2017 – 2018Lead iOS developer, AudioRhoonLed more than ten iOS apps for assistive technology used by people with severe disabilities. Case study ↗ 2015 – 2017Software developer, RocudoBuilt client products combining web, mobile and Web Audio, and the device integrations behind them.
What I bring
BuildingConcept to production · Architecture · Technical direction · Working with clinicians and researchers
PrivacyPrivacy by design · GDPR & DPIAs · EU AI Act readiness · Health and other regulated data
StackPython · Laravel / PHP · Vue / Nuxt · React / Next.js · AWS · HL7 FHIR
Speaking
2026“Ship Fast Without Creating a Compliance Time Bomb”Workshop for founders, developers and product teams · Da Nang and Chiang Mai
Publications
Education
2026Artificial Intelligence Governance Professional (AIGP)IAPP
2014 – 2015Higher Diploma, Software Development and DesignNational University of Ireland, Galway
2011 – 2012MA, Music TechnologyCork Institute of Technology
2008 – 2011BA, Economics and PoliticsUniversity College Cork