Devendra K Meena: Security Software Engineer at Shardeum

In our latest edition of ‘About Shardeum Team‘, we have Devendra K Meena, who is also the committer for the month of November 2024.

Devendra is working as Security Software Engineer at Shardeum, dedicated to enhancing the security of its blockchain infrastructure. With a diverse skill set spanning software engineering, penetration testing, and prior experience in blockchain architecture design, he takes a comprehensive approach to safeguarding systems. Outside of work, Devendra enjoys dancing, especially to Punjabi beats. Pretty impressive, huh? Let’s kick off with one of his performances below 😎

You can find him on LinkedIn.

Let’s Chat with Devendra!

Jereme/Will: What are you helping to build at Shardeum?

Devendra: I’m contributing to making Shardeum more secure. In a sharded blockchain architecture like Shardeum, security is paramount—after all, it’s people’s money at stake. I take this responsibility very seriously.

My work spans multiple layers of security: from securing the Web2 components and cloud infrastructure to ensuring the algorithms powering the Web3 ecosystem are robust and reliable. I assist developers in writing more secure code, conduct internal penetration testing, and proactively address vulnerabilities to fortify the entire system.

Security isn’t just a task—it’s a commitment to safeguarding trust in the Shardeum network.

Jereme/Will: What sets Shardeum apart?

Devendra: What I love about Shardeum is its unique blockchain architecture with sharding, which keeps gas fees consistently low, even during periods of high network traffic. Its ability to scale linearly by simply adding more nodes proportional to the traffic in the network—is a game-changer and a major advantage over most blockchain platforms. With our innovation, blockchain technology can overcome the scalability limits that have constrained its potential.

Unlike other chains that demand specialized and expensive hardware, Shardeum allows anyone to participate as a validator node using just a basic laptop or desktop. This accessibility empowers more people to join the network and earn rewards while contributing to its decentralization. Sounds amazing, doesn’t it?

Jereme/Will: How can our community members uplift Shardeum?

Devendra: You may have heard of the famous theory of  Six Degrees of Separation—if you start spreading the word, it could reach anyone in the world through just a chain of six connections. As more people join Shardeum’s network, inspired by its vision, it will grow stronger, achieve its goals, and benefit everyone involved.

You can contribute to our open-source initiatives, writing blogs, translating official documents like whitepaper, moderating the community platforms and helping spread its vision to every corner of the world in any way possible. Every effort, no matter how big or small, counts in building a thriving, decentralized future!

Jereme/Will: What was your journey into Web3?

Devendra: My work in the blockchain space began during my academic journey at IIT Kanpur in CSE. After the bachelors I decided to pursue dual degree, completing my master’s under the supervision of Prof. Sandeep Shukla and Prof. Manindra Agrawal at the university. During this time, I had the privilege of being an initial core team member of the National Blockchain Project, India. Our work included collaborating with the Uttar Pradesh government in India to design blockchain-based solutions for integrating land records and assist in court dispute resolution. Part of this initiative inspired another Indian state, Karnataka’s adoption of blockchain in its land record system. A memorable moment from this period was giving a project demo to Lt General (Dr) Rajesh Pant from one of the meetings.

I have also contributed academically, publishing a research paper titled, Preserving Patient’s Privacy using Proxy Re-encryption in Permissioned Blockchain, and have also contributed to the book, Blockchain and It’s application in Cybersecurity.

Professionally, my journey started at Eureka AI as a Full Stack Engineer, where my first project was setting up Identity and Access Management (IAM) using Keycloak and the Spring Security Framework. I later worked as a Security Assessment Engineer at C3ihub, focusing on securing Indian government projects and conducting penetration testing. At Anakin, I took on the role of Lead Software Engineer, where, in addition to software development, I tackled security challenges such as bypassing firewalls and web scraping, further fueling my interest in cybersecurity. This passion led me to earn the OSCP certification with a score of 110/100, including 10 bonus points, which I was fortunate to accomplish. This was followed by joining Shardeum as a Security Software Engineer. 🙂

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Note to the community: If you want to be part of our exciting team or any of our ecosystem projects’ team, please do keep a tab on our careers page on the website where you’ll find hundreds of job opportunities.