Sean McBride
Sean McBride
Systems Administrator

What’s the most challenging part of your job?

Security! We’re always making sure we’re in compliance, undergoing reviews and looking for potential holes. We have Security Technical Guidelines (STIGs) to follow and our government validators scan our systems regularly. The STIGs and standards are constantly changing with new findings happening monthly that we have to remediate.

How has AEM invested in you?

AEM has paid for my PhD. I’m focusing on developing a renewable energy model. If you want to use solar, wind, geothermal, or other emerging renewable energies, the model should estimate how much energy your site will be generating. I’ve actually applied lessons from AEM to help make building and running the model easier.

What do you want to learn next?

I have colleagues using cutting-edge technology that we know we’ll use in our contracts in coming years. I’ve been lucky to learn more from them and am reading up on those technologies in the meantime. I’d also love to go further into IT. Network management is fascinating. Firewalls, switches - it’s all interesting.