Scorecarder Spotlight - Jared Smith, Distinguished Engineer, R&D Strategy

Scorecarder Spotlight

In honor of Cybersecurity Awareness Month , we’re launching “Scorecarder Spotlight,” to showcase our talented employees and the incredible work they do.?

Name: Jared Smith

Job: Distinguished Engineer, R&D Strategy

Qualifications: PhD in Computer Science?

Tell us about yourself:?

As a resident of East Tennessee, I love hiking, backpacking, and anything involving skis—jet or snow. I’m also a huge college football fan, and my wife and I have season tickets to the University of Tennessee games…go Vols! On weekends, I’m either doing something outside or I’m at one of those games. We have two German Shepherds, Cliff and Clove, who keep us pretty busy—they actually have their own Instagram account with almost 20,000 followers.?

Describe your job:?

I lead R&D Strategy at SecurityScorecard. My team does everything from monitoring cyber threats and vulnerabilities to gleaning insights from security data. We do a lot of malware research and threat intelligence, and we even collaborate with law enforcement. A lot of what we do is geared towards keeping the online world safe. We can’t stop the world from going digital, so our goal is to help people manage their risk.?

What was your career path??

I’ve always been interested in STEM-related subjects. And I grew up on Florida’s Space Coast with the area code “321” (which is extremely cool). My aunt and uncle both worked for NASA and many of my family members served in the military or as public servants (my dad was a firefighter), and that sparked an interest in government service. But it wasn’t until college that I really got into computer science. I started off in physics, but the learning curve was rough. I realized I couldn’t learn the basics of quantum mechanics in a day, but I could learn a programming language in a day. Luckily, around that same time, I did a capture the flag cybersecurity competition with Cisco Systems, and that’s when I made the leap to computer science and never looked back.?

That led me to Cisco, where I was a security researcher and penetration tester. From there, I went to Oak Ridge National Lab, which is run by the Department of Energy. I was able to work on some very cool and some highly-classified projects for the U.S. Navy, DOE, and DHS. Over my years there I managed over $6M in funding and teams of up to 10 other scientists and engineers. After that, I worked as a CTO and a consultant at several startups. Now, I work with an incredible team at SecurityScorecard.

What’s it like working at SecurityScorecard??

A really great thing about SecurityScorecard is that everyone has a voice. In the government sector, it’s all about seniority and chain of command. So if you’re starting out in your career, it can be a little frustrating and intimidating. But at SecurityScorecard, if you have a great idea, people listen. This company takes meaningful risks on people who are willing to stick their necks out. That culture is everywhere. My goal is to surround myself with people who are smarter than I am, regardless of their background. I’ll hire someone without a GED as fast as I’ll hire someone with a PHD in 4 different fields, if they can bring innovation and creativity to the table.?

A key thing you’ve learned during your career?

Cyber criminals don’t take days off. Case in point: back in 2021, our team was still relatively small, which meant that we were on call pretty often. On the Fourth of July of that year, I was at the lake with friends. We went jet skiing, which is one of my favorite things to do. But while I was out on the water, one of our clients had been hacked, so I quickly went inside and spent six hours that day helping the customer. Our team is bigger now, but we’re always on call because we know our customers rely on us.?

Black Hat 2023

Favorite thing about working at SecurityScorecard?

My team doesn’t push a service or tool on a customer because we’re trying to meet a quota. We pride ourselves on working directly with customers to create (sometimes custom) solutions that serve their unique needs. It doesn't matter if they’re the CISO of a major bank, a multinational insurance company, or a small business—every customer counts.

Learn more about SecurityScorecard’s Threat Intelligence Team: https://securityscorecard.com/product/threat-and-risk-intelligence/