Spotlight: Joshua Reed

Joshua Reed is a Release Engineer at Kitestring.

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
Outside of work I enjoy a variety of things including spending time with my family and friends, however usually when off work I will be online with friends who all have similar interests that align with my own (IT Security, Software Development, some online gaming). My favorite restaurant to go to is LongHorn Steakhouse. I love to take my friends here, and I go often.

What are some of your favorite things about living and working in NWA? Northwest Arkansas has a great abundance of things you can do, one thing in particular that I would like to get back into is biking, I have a Cannondale Trail 2 bicycle and would love to get back on the trails. Also, NWA has a lot of great job opportunities and this keeps growing every year. Overall, this is a great place to live and to find good work.

What are you passionate about? I am passionate about Information Technology as a whole. Because of this I have a bachelor’s degree in IT Security, and I love learning how software works. I am extremely passionate when it comes to Ethical Hacking. I have been writing exploits and hacking software/tools since a very young age for ethical and educational purposes. I find it fascinating what one person can do with a few lines of code and a solid programming language.

Tell us how you started down your career path. Were you influenced by anyone? I was not influenced by a person; I was influenced by a specific type of software – RAT’s (Remote Access Trojans). These are tools that anyone can use, but cybercriminals mainly use this type of software to infect people’s computers and gain complete control of their systems remotely. Since RAT’s are a security concern this is what led me directly down the path of IT Security, and I knew from the moment I saw one in action I wanted to know everything about them and how they worked under the hood. This led me to dive into programming and I have learned so much over the years. My goal was to be able to create from scratch a full-blown Remote Access Trojan for my own education, and I have more than achieved this goal as I have actually written fully blown software solutions for companies over the years.

Tell us about some of your proudest achievements while working at Kitestring. While working for Kitestring I have enhanced many of my skills, but as far as achievements are concerned, I would have to say there are two. I feel very accomplished that I am able to pay attention to detail on a massive scale and better manage my workload as a whole. I honestly feel that if I had tuned these skills earlier on, then my previous jobs would have been less of a rush for me. Kitestring has placed me in the perfect position for my skill set, they could not have done a better job with my placement, and I am very excited to be working for them!

What are some aspects of your job that you enjoy most? I love the fact that my work on the build/release team has a huge impact for our customers IT needs. Without my role the testing of future software releases would be halted and would never make it to production where it is needed the most to resolve software bug related issues as well as to better user/customer experiences.

What are some future goals that you have?

• Obtain my CEH through the EC-Council
• Obtain all of my remaining Offensive security certifications (IT Security related certifications)
• Land myself a role in IT Security What are five words (or less) of advice for others in your profession? Try, Fail, Try Harder!