// portfolio
Alex McConnell
I like to build things.
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About
Hi! I'm Alex, an Engineering with Management student at Trinity College Dublin, having previously studied Computer Science at UCD. I have a passion for building, especially when those products have an impact on the world.
I believe the best way to learn something is to build it. That philosophy has led me from accretion disk shaders to drone delivery software to an EdTech startup, and I'm always looking for the next interesting problem.
Some Favourite Quotes:
"Do not be timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
"You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you're not passionate enough from the start, you'll never stick it out." — Steve Jobs
Education
M.Eng Engineering with Management
Trinity College Dublin
Previously
Computer Science
University College Dublin
Secondary
Leaving Certificate — 613 / 625 Points
98th percentile
St. Michael's College, 2023
Languages
Gaeilge, English, German, Spanish
Projects
SmartCert.ie
EdTech Startup
👋 hover me!An AI-powered Leaving Cert study platform that helps students prepare more effectively. Built from scratch as a real product, handling everything from web development to AI/LLM integration and information security.
EngMang.ie
Community Platform
👋 hover me!A full-stack platform for TCD Engineering Management students featuring real-time messaging, role-based access control, file storage, and SMS notifications. The whole stack, from auth to deployment.
Large-Scale SEO Intelligence Pipeline
Data Engineering
Designed and built a distributed data pipeline on Databricks that ingests and processes 10M+ web pages from Common Crawl (AWS S3) using PySpark, extracting structured SEO signals — meta tags, canonical tags, HTTPS adoption, and link profiles. Implemented data cleaning, URL standardisation, and feature engineering to compute weighted SEO scores across 500k+ domains benchmarked by TLD and industry. Built a client comparison tool that scores any domain against web-wide benchmarks, delivering actionable audit reports. Optimised storage and query performance with Parquet columnar format.
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Black Hole Visualisation
Graphics & Physics
👋 hover me!This is a personal favourite. I have a huge interest in physics/astrophysics. Some of my favourite books include A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking and Black Holes by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw. I built interactive real-time black hole renderer using custom GLSL shaders (nerd talk). Implements ray marching (how light moves), gravitational lensing (light gets bendy with gravity), Doppler shifting , and accretion disk physics — all running at interactive frame rates (borderline on some older laptops) on consumer hardware.
Experience
Director of AI Automation Solutions
CurrentLeading the design and deployment of end-to-end AI automation solutions — intelligent voice agents for inbound reception and outbound lead qualification via Twilio, and autonomous AI-powered website auditing tools with actionable SEO performance scoring. Driving operational efficiency and scalable client acquisition for partner businesses.
Global Corporate & Investment Banking — Spring Insight
IncomingSelected for a competitive spring insight programme in global corporate and investment banking.
Technology Hardware Analyst
CurrentAnalysing technology hardware equities for a student-managed portfolio with over €700k in AUM. Building DCF models, running comparable company analyses, and presenting investment theses to the fund.
Software Development Intern
Worked on optimising drone delivery operations. Wrote production code that improved system efficiency and reliability across the delivery pipeline.
Skills & Interests
Technical
// current playlist
// current favourite
// currently reading
Last updated: 8th March 2026
Beyond Code
Old Belvedere RFC. UCD McCorry Cup winner. Coached at school level.
Self-taught piano and guitar.
Gaeilge, English, German, and self-taught Spanish.
Passionate about mathematics and find teaching it incredibly rewarding. Tutor college, Leaving Cert, and Junior Cert students.
Currently working up to 4 balls.
Selected as a Peer Mentor, managing the academic and social onboarding of students, demonstrating strong communication and relationship-building skills.
Contact
Always happy to chat about interesting projects, opportunities, or ideas. Drop me a line.