After studying Computer Science at Trinity and spending 6 months at Cisco systems, I decided I wanted to take a different path. I moved to New York to study music production and find a job with a startup.

I took a job with Priv, an Uber for X for the wellness industry. As the first engineering hire, I was part of a small team that built the core architecture of the Priv app. I also helped grow and mentor the team.

New York is a place of constant movement. When I wasn't writing code and talking to customers, I was going to gigs or running a music night with some good pals.

After nearly 2 years in New York, I was ready for a change. I moved to Argentina with my girlfriend (now wife) Kim. We traveled, worked in hostels and restaurants, stayed in remote villages, learned Spanish, explored the wilderness, and met loads of wild, crazy, interesting people.

One year later I was back in Ireland to find the next adventure. I spent a few months freelancing, kitesurfing and hiking. I worked with Quetzaltrekkers, a volunteer hiking organisation in Guatemala and helped them create an online system to manage and grow their operation.

After a chance meeting over a pint with Shane Owens, the CTO of toothpic, I was back in the dev room.

Toothpic is a company that has defined the industry of teledentistry and was on a mission to democratise access to oral healthcare. Right up my alley. I worked alongside a small, talented, lovely team. I was responsible for all things frontend and built and managed the development of their dentist assessment platform, allowing dentists to remotely assess patients.

After an excellent 2 years at toothpic, I new I wanted to do something different. I spent some time making music and then joined my friends Paul and Paulus who were launching a business based in Latin America.

Hikes.me was born. With a mission to enable local tourism businesses in Latin America to manage and scale their operations, we set out to build a simple platform that would be the hub for their businesses. Each transaction also resulted in a donation to a locally run charity.

At the start of 2020, I joined evervault.

Not content with the way data is currently handled, evervault is on a mission to encrypt the web. As part of a small talented team, we built the company's core services to enable developers to easily protect their data and focus on doing what they do best, building the things.

Unfortunately, early in 2020, I caught Covid-19. A brief initial illness led 4 years of Long Covid, I've struggled with chronic fatigue, headaches, breathing issues, heart issues, you name it. But now I'm finally making progress.

This period of my life has taught me a lot about what matters to me in life, taking care of your health and the problems in our healthcare system. For all Covid took away, what it gave me was a new mission. I'm currently working with some of the worlds top clinicians to help scale the treatment and care of complex illness patients. If you're interested in learning more, email me at paddy@monahan.ie

Ps. Here is a candid photo of me enjoying a sandwich in my natural habitat.