How I Work
I recently saw this project shared by Adam Bertram, and decided that some of you may be interested in how I work on a day to day.
https://github.com/adbertram/HowIWorkIT/blob/master/README.md
If you’re not interested, well then why the hell are you here? You can see others that have participated here: https://github.com/adbertram/HowIWorkIT/blob/master/ThisIsHowIWork.md
Where are you located?
First of all, my name is Josh Rickard and I'm located in Columbia, Missouri. It sounds lame, but really it's a great little town. The population of Columbia is around 100, 000 (without students). With that being said, we have about 5 College's/Universities, so our population increases quite a bit when students are in town.What is/are your current gig(s):
I currently work at home for PhishMe; if you're not familiar, then check us out: http://phishme.com/. My position at PhishMe is currently "Manager, Reporter Solutions Engineering". I'm a new manager, but we do anything and everything to do with PhishMe Reporter products (email client plugin/add-in to reporter suspicious messages). When I say everything, I mean everything from customer engagement, support, troubleshooting, development, etc.What’s one word to describe your work?
Creativity
What apps, software, or tools can’t you live without?
Without a doubt, PowerShell. Besides that, the biggest in each category are:- Apps
- Jira
- Confluence
- Slack (and appear.in)
- Software
- PowerShell Studio
- Visual Studio Code
- OneNote
- VMWare Fusion
- Tools
- Doane Notebook and a great pen
- I know, I may be the only one but I still carry a pen and piece of paper daily.
- Doane Notebook and a great pen
What does your workspace look like? (Take a picture if you can)
So, since I work at home but workspace can get fairly messy but I try to keep it as clean as possible (even though my wife says I don’t :))
What's a typical workweek look like?
Since PhishMe is based on the east coast, and I live in the Midwest, I typically work in eastern time. I'm a new manager, so my typical workweek contains of lots of project work that ranges from documentation, to building new tools (using PowerShell mostly), automating processes, moving development forward, and making sure that all our customers needs have been met.What do you like the best about your role?
The best thing about my position is the ability to experiment and come up with new solutions for problems affecting our customers as well as new products. Besides that, I love my team. I have 8 guys underneath me and working them has made me excited for the next work week. We have a highly jelled team, which, as you may know is extremely rare.
What's something about you that no one knows about?
Some of you may know this, some of you probably not, but I went to school late in life; I've only been in IT for 5 1/2 years. So you can say I'm still learning the IT way. :)What do you listen to while you work?
I LOVE MUSIC!!!! Like, seriously LOVE IT! But when I work, I don't listen to anything. I can't. I'm a traditionalist and I love listening to the lyrics of music, but while I'm working I get too distracted if I try to listen to music.What do you wish you could change about your work?
Now that I'm manager of my team, I find that I can't focus on scripting/coding as much as I used to be able to. I've really only been manager for about 3 months, so most of my time right now is focused on process improvement and making sure all our projects are moving forward.Is there anything else you’d like to add that might be interesting to readers?
I decided to list out my career progression and some projects that I've worked on:- Helpdesk at a small college (9 months)
- Managed Accounts
- Ran TONS of network cable
- Implemented wireless across small college campus (College capstone project)
- System Support Analyst - Entry (14 months)
- Worked at a larger University/Medical
- Re-organized AD, GPOs, etc for over 3, 000 users/pcs
- Learned and implemented MDT for all 3, 000 users/pcs
- GCWN (SANS Certified Windows Security Administrator)
- System Support Analyst - Specialist (5 Months)
- Implemented MDT for another division within the University
- Guided a lot of initiatives that are still used today
- Security Analyst - Specialist (24 months)
- Hired as part of the Incident Response and Digital Forensics team for the University
- Managed cases/investigations/etc.
- Implemented QualysGuard Vulnerability Management for over 5, 000 servers
- Implemented/Designed Kaspersky Endpoint Security administrative console for entire campus
- Developed automation & defense tools for protection of University assets.
- Solutions Engineer - PhishMe (9 Months)
- Solutions Engineer responsible for advancing development and products
- Responsible for (ongoing) new products and solutions
- Automate EVERYTHING!
- Manager, Reporter Solutions Engineering
- Responsible for global support, engagement, development and automation tools to support our global customers with more than 5.5 Million endpoints installed globally.
- 8 Employee's
- Product development, enhancements, and bug hunting.