sammcaulay.dev

Sam McAulay

Software Developer, heading into AI & Security

Building Digital Worlds.

Featured work

Where I'm heading

AI and security in my work

  • Phisher vs Filter

    My thesis: ML attackers against ML defenders, from hand-written rules up to a local LLM.

  • Moderation log bot

    Flags players whose kill rate spikes far above their own record, live across six servers.

  • Warcon hosting

    Zero-trust access through Cloudflare Access, with a scoped API key for each service.

  • AR AI Museum Guide

    Live Gemini voice for a client, with answers grounded in search and keys kept off the phone.

  • Janguard

    Steam sign-in, server-side sessions and staff verification for VIP access.

I'm Sam, a final-year student on TUS's BSc (Hons) in Software Design with Virtual Reality and Gaming, graduating in 2027. I'm on the Dean's Honours List and on course for a first.

My work started in games and Discord bots, and it has been moving toward AI and security: I run the infrastructure for a 35,000-member gaming community, I built a live AI museum guide for a client, and my thesis measures whether AI helps phishers or spam filters more. That's the field I want to work in after I graduate.

Download my CV PDF, 2 pages

All projects

15 projects: my thesis, live community services, client work, bots with real users, games, and the Linux setup I work in every day. Open any one for the full write-up.

  1. TEG Wardogs

    Discord members
    35,000+
    in-game players
    20,000+

    The live services behind TEG's six Wardogs game servers: hosting, stats, status bots and moderation.

    Solo buildPlatformTypeScriptNext.jsdiscord.jsDockerCloudflareLinux VPS

  2. Phisher vs Filter

    My thesis: does AI help phishers or spam filters more? I'm measuring it.

    Thesis, in progressResearchPythonPyTorchHugging Facescikit-learnSpamAssassinLoRA

  3. AR AI Museum Guide

    An AR museum guide: point your phone at an exhibit and ask it anything out loud.

    Solo buildARUnity 6AR FoundationC#Node.jsExpressGemini LiveWebSocketsPostgreSQLRailway

  4. The Jantleman Bot

    users served
    50,000+

    A reputation database for Discord trading communities.

    Solo buildBotPythonDiscordSQLite

  5. Flicker Bot

    users served
    100+

    A do-it-all Discord bot with games, an economy and tickets.

    Solo buildBotPythonDiscordSQLite

  6. Janguard

    A Discord bot and web server that manages VIP access for TEG's game servers.

    Solo buildBotTypeScriptdiscord.jsExpressPrismaPostgreSQLSteam login

  7. Moonhaul

    Award-winning split-screen couch co-op: battle friends for the most moons.

    • Best Gameplay
    • Best Use of a Physics Engine
    • Best Soundtrack

    Team buildGameUnityHLSLC#

  8. Math Game Web App

    A C++ backend serving a web front end, shipped by CI/CD.

    Team buildWebC++CrowDockerCI/CD

  9. Space VR Explorer

    A VR simulation of asteroid impacts, built at a hackathon.

    Team buildGameUnityVRC#ShaderLabNASA API

  10. Battleship

    Multiplayer battleship over LAN and WAN.

    Team buildGameC++SFMLNetworking

  11. Laser Game

    A procedurally generated horror game built for speedruns.

    Solo buildGameUnityC#

  12. Pangbot

    A Twitch bot that grabs build codes straight from chat.

    Solo buildBotPythonTwitch

  13. i3 Dotfiles

    Animated i3 with Wayland-style motion on Xorg.

    Solo buildConfigi3wmpicompywalBash

  14. Neovim Config

    My daily-driver Neovim, lazy-loaded and kept current.

    Solo buildConfigNeovimLua

  15. NCWM

    A no-code tiling Wayland compositor. Early work in progress.

    In the worksDesktopWaylandCompositorGUI config

Experience

Work, study and the communities I build for, newest first.

  1. 2026 – now

    Infrastructure and tooling

    The Employed Gamers (TEG) community

    Hosting the Warcon admin panel for six Wardogs game servers, and building the stats site, status bots, moderation bot and Janguard on top of it.

  2. Jan – May 2026

    Lead Software Developer

    Khora, remote placement

    Led and delivered a full-stack AR AI museum guide as the only developer: client requirements meetings, architecture, CI/CD to production and live demos.

  3. 2025

    Lead Game Developer, Moonhaul

    Games Fleadh 2025

    Won Best Gameplay, Best Use of a Physics Engine and Best Soundtrack with a physics-based couch co-op game.

  4. 2025

    Hackathon team member

    Hackathon Athlone 2025

    Built Space VR Explorer, a VR simulation of asteroid impacts using NASA data.

  5. Apr – Aug 2025

    Crew Member

    McDonald's, Athlone

    High-volume customer service, cash handling and stock monitoring. Recognised by management for customer service and teamwork.

  6. 2023 – 2027

    BSc (Hons) Software Design with Virtual Reality and Gaming

    Technological University of the Shannon, Athlone

    Dean's Honours List and on course for a first. Final-year thesis on AI and email security. Student council, and work shown at campus open days.

  7. 2023 – now

    Volunteer, special needs childcare

    Birr, Co. Offaly

    Supporting children with developmental and learning disabilities, with communication strategies built around each child.

Toolkit

What my projects are built with, and what I get up to away from them. Every tool here has shipped in a project or runs on my machine.

Languages

  • C
  • C++
  • C#
  • Java
  • Python
  • Lua
  • JavaScript
  • TypeScript
  • HTML
  • CSS
  • SQL
  • Bash

Engines & libraries

  • Unity
  • SFML
  • Crow
  • Node.js
  • Next.js
  • React
  • Express
  • discord.js
  • Prisma
  • PostgreSQL
  • SQLite
  • Gemini API
  • HLSL
  • ShaderLab

Tooling

  • Git
  • Docker
  • Cloudflare
  • Jenkins
  • CMake
  • AWS
  • Oracle
  • Neovim
  • Visual Studio
  • Blender

Systems

  • Arch Linux
  • Debian
  • Ubuntu
  • FreeBSD
  • OpenBSD
  • Windows
  • i3wm
  • Wayland

Off the clock

  • Making prototype perfumes
  • Vinyl and CD collecting
  • Building PCs and home servers
  • Watches and fashion