Axel Denis
A gargoyle on Amiens cathedral, at night
The portal of Amiens cathedral, at night
The tower of Jules Verne’s house, Amiens
Saint-Quentin at night, seen from the basilica gallery
Plan of the Doullens citadel, 1660: defence in layers
Alicante, seen from the watchtower of Santa Bárbara castle

A gargoyle on Amiens cathedral, at night

Axel Denis

I build systems to understand how to defend them.

Cybersecurity engineering student at École d’Ingénieurs Jules Verne in Amiens, France, looking for a two-year SOC apprenticeship from September 2027.

Apprenticeship
September 2027, two years
Schedule
one week at school, one week at work
Location
Hauts-de-France and Paris region

Download my CV Write to me

Defending in the shadows

Technology is part of everyday life. We keep our photos, our conversations, our work and sometimes our health in it. The more I used it, the more one question held my attention: who makes sure all of it stays safe?

Defensive security mostly happens out of sight. When it is done well, nobody notices, and that is exactly what draws me to it: protecting people who should never have to worry about what happens behind the screen.

My first goal is a SOC analyst role. I believe you only design a secure infrastructure well once you have learned to monitor and defend one. Later on, I would like to move towards security architecture and the cloud.

People describe me as rigorous, autonomous and curious. I like to analyse and understand before acting, and I enjoy working in a team. I speak French, English (C1) and Spanish (B1+).

Axel DenisEngineering student, Cybersecurity track, EiJV

My journey

Understanding what is at stake

I started with economics. That detour taught me how companies work, what they stand to lose and why they become targets. Understanding what an attacker is after is already the first step of defence.

  • Bachelor’s year in Economics, Université de Picardie Jules Verne2023–2024

Getting hands-on

The urge to work with the technology itself took over. During my BTS (a two-year technical degree) I learned networking (DNS, VLANs, routing), Linux, programming and electronics, in theory and in practice. That is where I built Aquatrack.

  • BTS CIEL (Cybersecurity, IT, Networks, Electronics), Saint-Quentin2024–2026
  • Production operator, Verbau France, industrial manufacturingsummer 2024

Building as a team

Three months in a Spanish web agency, inside a development team. I worked on the complete redesign of the RELSA website and contributed to the back end, with daily meetings and weekly reports, in a foreign language. For an internal need, I also built an image compression app on my own.

  • Full stack developer (internship), Nitsnets, Alicante, SpainMay–July 2025

Learning to defend

I chose to specialise. Alongside school, I train on TryHackMe (SOC simulator, preparing the SAL1 certification) and HackTheBox. I am discovering SIEM, EDR, log analysis, MITRE ATT&CK, ISO 27001 and NIS2, and I am building my homelab.

  • Engineering degree, Cybersecurity, École d’Ingénieurs Jules Verne, Amiens2026–2029
  • Programme accredited SecNumEdu by ANSSI, the French cybersecurity agencysince 2026

What comes next

What I am looking for now: putting all of this into practice within a team, on real infrastructure, for real users.

  • Apprenticeship in a SOC, Blue Team, network or infrastructure securitySept. 2027

Projects

Circuit board of a Cisco Catalyst 2960 switch, close-up of its Broadcom chips
Inside a Cisco Catalyst 2960, the switch that carries my VLANs.

Homelab

Personal infrastructure, in progress

Why

To host everyday services myself, for free and in control of my own data, and later share them with my family. It is also my training ground: infrastructure, networking, cloud, defensive and offensive security. The aim is not to master everything, but to understand how the pieces fit together.

What is planned

A Proxmox hypervisor, an OPNsense firewall, four VLANs (LAN, LAB, DMZ, ADMIN) on a Cisco 2960 switch, a WireGuard VPN, monitoring with Prometheus and Grafana, a Wazuh SIEM and self-hosted services.

Where it stands

Phase 1 of 10 complete: the hardware. Next step, installing Proxmox.

Proxmox, OPNsense, Cisco IOS, WireGuard, Wazuh, Prometheus, Grafana, Docker

Documentation on GitHub
An ESP32-CAM module seen from the front, with its camera and card reader
An ESP32-CAM module, the heart of the sensor.

Aquatrack

Embedded system, BTS project, 2026

The challenge

The aquarium topic was set for us. Underneath, the question was the same as for any connected device: how do you collect data reliably and deliver it without loss, even when the network fails?

My part

I built the ESP32-CAM module: automatic photo capture at an interval the user sets, then delivery to the project’s API over HTTP. I worked on resilience with automatic Wi-Fi reconnection, error handling, a memory buffer and persistent logs, so nothing is lost when the connection drops.

C++, ESP32-CAM, HTTP, REST API, Wi-Fi

The relsa.es home page on a desktop screen The relsa.es home page on a phone
relsa.es, on desktop and on a phone.

RELSA

Company website redesign, Nitsnets internship, 2025

The context

A complete redesign of the website of RELSA, an industrial installation and maintenance company based in Sabadell, Spain, part of the Estabanell group.

My part

Back-end development within a team, with daily follow-ups and a weekly report.

Back-end web development, teamwork, agile method

relsa.es
The portal of Amiens cathedral at night Original, 544 KB Compressed, 108 KB
Drag: the same photo, five times lighter.

Compressor

Web application, Nitsnets internship, 2025

The problem

Heavy images slow websites down, and the existing tools are often paid, limited or not trustworthy.

The solution

A web app built from scratch that compresses images consistently. Simple, free, unlimited and secure: files are processed on the server, never sent to a third-party service. The code belongs to the company and stays private.

Laravel, PHP

The homelab, piece by piece

This is the network I am building. Pick a piece to see its role, the services it hosts and how far along it is.

Cisco 2960 switch

In place

The managed switch that carries the VLAN segmentation.

Hosts

  • VLANs 10, 20, 30, 40
  • Trunk ports to Proxmox

The roadmap

  1. Hardware
  2. Proxmox installation
  3. Network and VLAN setup
  4. OPNsense deployment
  5. Monitoring and observability
  6. Security services
  7. DevSecOps and automation
  8. Everyday self-hosted services
  9. Cloud and Azure
  10. Containers and orchestration

Address ranges are generic, for documentation only.

Skills

Networking

  • TCP/IP, DNS, routingpractised Studied during my BTS, in theory and in practice.
  • VLANspractised Segmentation plan designed for my homelab.
  • Firewalls, VPN, monitoringlearning

Systems

  • Linuxpractised Command line and troubleshooting.
  • Windows Serverlearning
  • Proxmox, Dockerlearning

Development and IoT

  • C, C++, ESP32practised Aquatrack firmware.
  • PHP, Laravel, REST APIspractised Internship at Nitsnets.
  • Python, Bashpractised
  • Git, GitHubpractised

Defensive security

  • SOC simulatorpractised On TryHackMe.
  • SIEM, EDR, log analysislearning
  • Microsoft Sentinel and Defenderlearning
  • Incident reportinglearning

Frameworks

  • MITRE ATT&CKlearning
  • OWASP Top 10learning
  • ISO 27001, NIS2learning

Practice and certifications

  • Certifications
  • TryHackMe SAL1, in progress
  • Cybersecurity awareness, ANSSI
  • OpenAI, Apply AI at Work
  • AI pathway
  • AI Foundations
  • Applied AI Foundations
  • Agents and Workflows
  • Languages
  • French, native
  • English, C1
  • Spanish, B1+

Looking for a cybersecurity apprentice from September 2027? Let’s talk.

The easiest way to reach me

axel.denis.pro@hotmail.com LinkedIn

Amiens, France. Open to Hauts-de-France and the Paris region. I reply quickly.