A Software Developers journey through PWK/OSCP

CodingoCodingo Registered Users Posts: 1 ■□□□□□□□□□
I've been lurking for a while around here, but I figured this was a good way to kickoff:

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Your lab start date is Sun, 05 Feb 2017, 10:00 (Australia/Brisbane) at which point, you will receive your Offensive Security PWK course materials and lab account details by email at the following address: <redacted>
About meJust over a year and a half ago I started an MBA. Although I love what I'm learning and I'm only two classes from completion I'm a bit burnt out - so I'm taking a semester off and have signed up for 90 days of PWK.

Job titles aren't all that accurate - but mine is Solutions Architect. To summarize my role - I write in-house software for a reasonably large company and spend a lot of my time breaking down software to business people, and translating business people to development and architecture teams. I also help to manage internal digital projects and often find myself training stakeholders on web technology, and digital marketing (Google AdWords focus). A lot of my time is spent in the Azure / .Net stack but I have used Python for data cleanup and deployment scripts where appropriate.


Preparation
I... I bought a coffee machine for the late nights?

Seriously though - this isn't an instant decision for me. I've spent the last year working myself up to it by reaching out to the security community in my area and making new friends. I have a meeting setup with the great Jollyfrogs of this forum before I start, and I've also met with a few others not on this forum who've worked their way through OSCP that had valuable advice.

On the technical side I worked my way through Vivek's JavaScript for Pentesters certification however not a whole lot more course wise (MBA and all!). Security has however been a passion of mine for a long time and I also have a Dell R710 at home I've been using to up my knowledge of bare-metal infrastructure and VM's.

In the last couple of weeks leading into my start date I plan to hang out with my wife as much as possible and enjoy the freedom. The whole point of my 90 days is to learn - I don't think doing more now is going to give me the best mental state to ensure I'm learning as effectively as possible when I start, plus it wouldn't be fair on my wife!

Technical proficiency
I consider myself a developer through and through. My architecture knowledge is improving (slowly) but it's a huge weak point for me. I understand enough of TCP/IP and networking for my role but expect to be putting a lot of time throughout the course to learn it at a deeper level. I've used Linux for a number of years and currently have CentOS installed on my main box at home (although I do use Windows at work).

Development wise - I've often trained developers and I have a very solid understanding of a variety of languages, design patterns and debugging techniques. I'm hoping this provides some advantages and believe it should when I get to buffer overflows. I'm also hoping, greatly, to find out that I'm completely wrong about my own experience and that OSCP will humble my development background greatly - giving me new and fresh areas to learn more.

Contact me
I'll be on on the #offsec Freenode channel when I start under the name codingo if anybody wants to chat! You can also reach me at codingo@outlook.com. Please note that any requests for a copy of the course material, or insights into the course that would breach Offensive Security's ToS will be ignored.

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