About My Journey

Sales Engineer hybrid. SaaS tinkerer. IT guy who loves selling.

I’m Ahmad Hakimi, a Sales Engineer hybrid with over a decade of experience across IT, cybersecurity, SaaS innovation, and entrepreneurship. My career has always been about one thing: bridging technical systems with business outcomes—through discovery, solution design, demos, and persuasive communication.

I’ve launched and sold SaaS products like FlippAI, an AI-powered app that automated ad generation and sourcing for resellers, generating $300k+ in revenue through The Flipping Ninja platform. And here’s the truth: the code was cool, but the best part? Demoing it. Watching someone’s eyes light up when they realized it could help them pay off $18k in debt—that’s the kind of moment that gets me fired up.

At the Boulder Public Library, I pioneered internal AI initiatives with the launch of AI Meeting Scribe, a secure tool for transcript summaries and Q&A. I treated it like a consultative engagement—holding discovery sessions with leadership, gathering requirements, designing proofs-of-concept. But I didn’t just build it, I sold it. I pitched it to staff, handled the “but is it safe?” objections, and demoed it in plain language until it clicked. When 200+ users started adopting it, that’s when it hit me: this was Sales Engineering in disguise.

Before that, I cut my teeth in enterprise IT at Amazon, Colliers International, and the US Postal Service. Vulnerability remediations, MFA deployments, nationwide support, high stakes.

I also worked in MSP environments supporting 50+ client organizations across different industries, which sharpened my ability to diagnose problems quickly, translate technical issues into plain language, and earn trust fast.

Those years taught me how to keep systems secure, users happy, and execs calm when things got messy.

And on the side? I’ve built ventures that doubled as training grounds and strengthened my consultative selling skills:

  • IntelligentMuscle.net – a fully automated digital fitness platform I spun up in my early 20s that pulled in $8k in its first three weeks. I managed the full SaaS lifecycle—from backend systems to customer retention, often saving 80% of refund-seeking customers through empathetic calls and solution reframing.
  • Real Estate Marketing Consultant – authored The One Page Marketing Plan for Real Estate Investors as a lead-gen tool that positioned me as a trusted advisor; from there, I helped investors generate six-figure profits (e.g., one client landed three deals worth $150k+) by uncovering pain points in discovery calls, designing USP-driven websites and direct mail campaigns, and closing $1,000/month subscription retainers.

Each of these sharpened the same muscles I use today: finding pain points, pitching solutions, and closing.

Through Operation Octopus, my cybersecurity blog, I’ve also shared insights from hands-on labs—SIEM setups, penetration testing, Nessus vulnerability management—and how those skills tie back to real business value.

So why Sales Engineering? Because it’s everything I love rolled into one role: tech, problem-solving, people, persuasion, revenue. It’s where all the threads of my interests and strengths come together — and it’s what truly lights me up. And honestly, I’ve been training for this all along.

If you’re curious, let’s connect. Reach me on LinkedIn or here. I’m always down to talk shop—whether it’s SaaS, sales, cybersecurity, or just swapping stories about ridiculous side hustles.

Behind the Scenes: My Technical Side

While my focus today is on Sales Engineering—discovery, demos, and translating tech into business wins—I also bring a strong technical foundation. Over the years I’ve earned certifications, completed hands-on labs, and built projects that keep my skills sharp and credible. Here’s a breakdown of the technical work that underpins my Sales Engineering journey:

Certifications

  • eJPT - eLearnSecurity - Junior Penetration Tester 
  • CompTIA Network+
  • CompTIA A+

Trainings

# Splunk Fundamentals

# Immersive Labs (https://immersivelabs.online)
  • Developed confidence and speed of incident response through real hands-on labs and cases in a gamified learning environment
  • Performed detection, analysis, research, investigation and forensic activities for security events
  • Investigated and remediated cyber attacks including DDoS, phishing, and malware infections
  • Utilized full packet capture to re-create a security event, identify IOCs, and write custom IDS/IPS (SNORT) rules

# Cybrary - Become a SOC Analyst - Level 1 (81h 4m)

  • Developed hands-on experience on topics such as threat intelligence, threat hunting, network monitoring, incident response
  • Validated security controls by trying to break them (i.e. penetration testing)
  • Developed skills in critical areas like log analysis and SOC Technologies including but not limited to: intrusion detection and protection devices, host based protection technologies, 0-day and APT technologies (sandboxing, behavioral monitoring, etc.), packet capture and meta data analytic systems, DLP technologies, email hygiene systems, etc.

# MITRE ATT&CK Training

  • Course: “Using MITRE ATT&CK for Cyber Threat Intelligence”

# Pentester Academy

  • Active member and student; perform training and hands-on lab exercises weekly that emulate real world scenarios to keep skills sharp and stay updated on new threats, TTPs, ATPs, and IOCs

# INE: Penetration Testing Student

  • Learned and practiced pen testing fundamentals including but not limited to: OSINT, Planning & Reconnaissance, Enumeration, Gaining Access/Exploitation, Post-Exploitation, Privilege Escalation, and Password Attacks. Regular labs + training
  • Obtained and passed eJPT certification exam (August 2022)

# TryHackMe

  • Reached top 5% of users within a few weeks

Projects

# Building a SIEM at Home: Cybersecurity Detection Lab with Security Onion IDS | 2022
  • Developed vulnerable test environment for training and testing of various cyber capabilities
  • Configured Security Onion in home lab as an all-in-one IDS, Security Monitoring and Log management solution
  • Monitored network alerts/intrusion/detections/packets. Ran exploits between Kali & vulnerable VMs (Metasploitable, Raspberry Pi) to learn how protocols communicate with eachother, see what bad traffic looks like, and distinguish what's normal communication vs anomalies
  • Performed analysis of network traffic using tools such as Wireshark to identify potential threats or anomalies within the environment
# Attack Monitoring on Honeypot Virtual Machine Using Cloud-based Sentinel SIEM on Azure Cloud Platform | 2022
  • Utilized custom PowerShell script to extract metadata from Event Viewer and parse to 3 rd party API to
    obtain geolocation
  • Initialized Log Analytics Workspace in Azure to receive custom logs composed of geographic
    information
  • Setup Sentinel SIEM to view attacks originating globally on a graphical world map
# Vulnerability Management with Nessus | 2022
  • Installed and configured Nessus Essentials to perform credentialed vulnerability scans against Windows 10 hosts
  • Implemented Vulnerability Management Function on sandbox networks: Discover, Prioritize, Assess, Report, Remediate, Verify
  • Conducted vulnerability assessments with Nessus; remediated vulnerabilities
  • Developed an automated remediation process to preemptively deal with vulnerabilities stemming from Windows updates and third-party software.

Skills & Tools

  • Bash (Unix Shells)
  • Metasploitable VMs
  • Routing and Switching
  • Active/Passive Information Gathering
  • Vulnerability Scanning
  • Basic Windows/Linux Buffer Overflows
  • Client-Side Attacks
  • Privilege Escalation (Windows & Linux)
  • Password Attacks
  • Port Redirection and Tunneling
  • The Metasploit Framework
  • Cryptography
  • Footprinting and Reconnaissance
  • Scanning Networks with Wireshark
  • Enumeration
  • Vulnerability Analysis & Patching
  • System Hacking
  • Sniffers + Network Traffic Capture & Analysis
  • Social Engineering + OSINT
  • Session Hijacking
  • Evading IDS & Firewalls
  • Hacking Web Servers & Web Applications
  • Hacking Wireless Networks
  • Hacking IoT Devices

~$ Vulnerability Assessment: Nessus, Nikto, Wireshark, Burp Suite, Nmap, SQLmap

~$ Regulatory Compliance: NIST 800-61, NIST 800-171, CIS Controls v8, ISO 27001

~$ Scripting and Programming: Linux Shell, Bash, PowerShell

~$ Offensive Security: Kali Linux, Metasploit, Meterpreter, Aircrack-ng, DirBuster, enum4linux, exploitdb, John the Ripper, Ettercap, Social-Engineer Toolkit (SET), Mimikatz, Wappalyzer, MITRE ATT&CK framework

~$ Operating Systems: Linux, Windows, MacOS, Virtual Machines (VMware)

~$ SIEM & Monitoring Tools: Splunk, Azure Sentinel, Elastic Stack (ELK), Security Onion

~$ Network: Fundamentals, common protocols, packet capture and analysis, log analysis, tcpdump, Ettercap

~$ Other: Typing speed of 95 wpm

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