Conor Flannery
This will sound cliché but when I was in 6th year and going to all of the open days, Maynooth was the one that I immediately felt at home in. I loved the college, the town, the people I met and before leaving for the day had decided that this was the university I wanted to go to. 10 years later and I’ve no regrets.
The Engineering Dept in Maynooth was a lot smaller than some of the other large departments in the college. At the time, each year wouldn’t have had more than 30 students and so it was very easy to build relationships with your lecturers and there was very much a close-knit vibe around the place. I remember I used to just go and sit and chat with certain lecturers between classes, sometimes to talk about college work, but usually to just chat. While it might not seem like much, coming from secondary school and being treated like an adult and equal by your lecturers had a big impact on me. Violetta McLoone and Andrew Meehan were lecturers that I would often look to for advice and always leant an ear when needed.
As an engineering student, the problem-solving mindset that is instilled in you is something that you can apply to almost any job. When I went to work for Accenture after graduating, I applied very little of my academic knowledge to my role. Accenture was not an electrical engineering company after all. However, completing a degree is not just about the specific knowledge you gain from your modules, it can be about the transferable skills you gain from your studies and from the environment you’re immersed in for 3 or 4 years. While I may not have been building electrical circuits or solving complex maths problems in my work, I was able to apply my problem-solving mentality to any of the challenges I faced at the beginning of my career.
As I progressed through my career, especially since co-founding Cytidel, the technical ability that I learned in MU, the programming classes in particular, have been front and centre. As CTO, I am currently the lead software developer for the business. Without the passion for programming I gained from my degree, I would never be in this position.Secondly, but no less importantly, Maynooth helped increase my sociability. In my 4th year I joined and took part in a number of societies after some coaxing from friends. I joined the Lifesaving club. I campaigned for a friend in the Student Union elections, I started saying yes to any event going (which was very unlike me in previous years). This might not resonate with many, but getting out of my comfort zone in that way made me a much more well-rounded person. It’s also how I met my wife… so there’s that too!
I have plenty! I asked for a letter of recommendation from a member of the Engineering department while I was in 3rd year. He sat me down and asked me questions about what I had done since joining the university – had I done anything of note within the department, did I have any projects I was working on, had I applied for the SPUR programme, etc etc. A long list of questions to which every answer I gave was “no”. At the end of our conversation, he told me that to stand out, doing your classes and getting good exam results might not be enough and that I should look into expanding my extracurriculars. I didn’t like this response, I was frustrated by it, my ego wouldn’t stand for it! As I began to progress in my career and now as someone who interviews and employs people, that kind of thing is something that stands out for me. As much as my 21-year-old self would hate for me to admit - That Engineering Dept lecturer was right, in a way. I’m not saying it’s something you have you to do. But it can help. Take the internship, do the extra training course, attend the seminar.
My last bit of advice is for anyone still in the University or coming to attend the university next year. Jump out of your comfort zone earlier than I did. Obviously, your studies are an incredibly important but there is so much more to be enjoyed in MU or any college when you are open to it. It doesn’t need to be sports, it doesn’t need to be about partying, there are literally societies full of all different kinds of like-minded people. My one regret from my time at Maynooth is that I didn’t take advantage of those kinds of things sooner.
During my third year, I was selected for the Accenture internship programme where I was assigned to work for An Garda Síochána for a period of 5 months. Before finishing the internship, I was offered after graduation and spent 5 years with Accenture as a Technology Consultant with the Gardaí. Accenture was a great place to start your career – it inspired a good work ethic in me, exposed me to a lot of different areas in IT and Technology and most importantly, introduced me to a lot of talented people that I would consider mentors for years afterwards. It is also where I met my current Co-Founders of my business.
I left Accenture in 2019 after deciding to continue Consulting but in a more specialised area. I became a Cybersecurity consultant for Integrity360 where I spent the next three years working with the largest banks in Ireland. A colleague of mine from Accenture, Matt Conlon, also worked in Integrity360 and we had a running joke about him leaving to start a business and that I could be Co-Founder. In 2021, Matt did just that and founded Cytidel, a Cybersecurity software company. In June of 2022, I left Integrity to become CTO and Co-Founder of Cytidel and have been there since. We have recently raised our first investment round and now have a total staff of 10.
One of the challenges I faced in my early career, was when I was coming to the end of my time in Accenture. After spending 5 years there, the natural progression for me was that I would become a manager. As a very technical person, and still with a lot to learn, I wasn’t ready to transition to a people-management role. If I had been promoted to manager, I’d be miserable, because I’d no longer be doing what motivated me, what drove me onwards, what I enjoyed doing. It took a while for me to realise that the company’s plan for me did not match up with my plan for my career and I decided to leave. That was a difficult decision. I had a lot of friends in Accenture (I still do) and I liked working there. The thought of not going to work with them is probably what kept me there so long. I’ve no doubt that this is a common issue people will face, especially in their first job. For me to overcome that took my older brother to describe the “Good Enough” paradox to me. Basically, if something is “good enough”, you’re less inclined to change it, even though making the change would likely result in a better outcome. It clicked with me immediately and pushed me to make the decision.
I love solving problems. Being challenged with a problem that I have no idea how to solve is the one thing that motivates me to keep going daily. I think that’s a trait shared by a lot of software engineers and maybe why I was so determined when the offer to join a 1-man (about to be 2-man) startup came about. The concept of building something from the ground up fascinated me and 2 years on, it still does. Like all jobs there’s definitely days or even weeks when you hit a motivation slump. It’s going to happen no matter how much you love your job I think. I’m very lucky that I love what I do and that I’ve managed to carve out a place where I work for myself. It makes the motivation a lot easier to recover.
Conor's profile appears in The Bridge 2024, the annual MU alumni magazine.