Risto Mcgehee
Security Engineer at Liftoff Mobile
Salem, Oregon, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolRisto Mcgehee is a Security Engineer with 11 years of experience specializing in backend security, DevOps, and hardening large-scale systems. Currently at Liftoff and formerly a Staff Software Security Engineer at Datto, he blends hands-on coding with security policy and CI/CD improvements to reduce risk across the software lifecycle. His open-source contributions include security and UX improvements to the Python Package Index and linting/CI work on OpenSSF Scorecard, showing attention to cryptographic integrity (blake2b_256) and automation quality. Academically grounded with a CS MS from Georgia Tech and a strong undergraduate record, he pairs practical engineering with continuous learning in adjacent fields like economics and law. Based in Salem, Oregon, Risto is known for improving developer workflows and protecting sensitive actions through pragmatic controls such as 2FA enforcement and API token management. He brings a rare mix of systems engineering, security tooling, and thoughtful interdisciplinary curiosity to every project.
11 years of coding experience
8 years of employment as a software developer
Master of Science - MS, Computer Science, 3.7, Master of Science - MS, Computer Science, 3.7 at Georgia Institute of TechnologyBachelor's, Computer Science, 3.9, Bachelor's, Computer Science, 3.9 at Oregon State UniversityBachelor's degree, Pastoral Studies/Counseling, 3.8, Bachelor's degree, Pastoral Studies/Counseling, 3.8 at Corban University
Spanish
Github Skills (16)
json10
linting10
github-ci10
go10
api10
githubaction-workflow10
software-quality10
python10
apidoc10
security10
cicd9
postgresql9
django9
openssf9
testing8
Programming languages (9)
Github contributions (5)
ossf/scorecard
Mar 2021 - Mar 2022
OpenSSF Scorecard - Security health metrics for Open Source
Role in this project:
Backend Developer & DevOps Engineer
Backend Developer & DevOps EngineerContributions:49 reviews, 58 commits, 56 PRs in 11 months
Contributions summary:Risto's commits primarily focus on fixing linting issues across various checks within the project. They addressed issues related to whitespace, wrapcheck, errcheck, paralleltest, and gocritic linters. Additionally, the user made changes to the CI tests and branch protection configuration, indicating involvement in DevOps tasks. These changes demonstrate a focus on code quality, maintainability, and potentially, improving the project's automated testing and build processes.
security-toolssecurityhealthscorecardopenssf
pypi/warehouse
Jan 2023 - Jan 2023
The Python Package Index
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:15 reviews, 3 commits, 16 PRs in 10 days
Contributions summary:Risto made several contributions related to the Python Package Index's JSON API and user account management. They added support for the `blake2b_256` hash algorithm to the JSON API, enhancing the security and data integrity of package downloads. The user also implemented features to improve user experience, such as ordering API tokens and requiring 2FA for sensitive actions like organization and project joining, and publisher additions. Additionally, the user addressed deprecation warnings in the `notdatadog` service, and improved existing code.
python-packagepythonpackage-indexindexpackage-registry
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