His dissertation research developed the Scribe word processing system, for which he received the Association for Computing Machinery's Grace Murray Hopper Award in 1982.
There he was a recipient of the Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1984, working along with other new faculty such as John L. Hennessy, David R. Cheriton, and Mark Horowitz.
[4] Along with faculty such as Susan Owicki, Forest Baskett, and James H. Clark, his research concerned the connection of Stanford to the Internet, and the development of the SUN workstation.
[6][7] He left Stanford in 1987, he was immediately hired by the Digital Equipment Corporation, first in the Western Research Laboratory (DEC WRL) under Forest Baskett in Palo Alto, California.
Some early Internet attackers (such as Kevin Mitnick) would impersonate Reid in telephone calls in attempts to gain trust.
He was fired by Larry Page (who was 30 at the time) in February 2004, after being told he was not a "cultural fit" by Rosing, and that his ideas were "too old to matter" by Hölzle, according to Reid.
[16] After retaining Duane Morris as counsel, Reid proceeded to sue Google in July 2004 for discrimination on the basis of age and disability.
[14] Google retained Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, which defended the case on the grounds that Reid was allegedly told he was not a "cultural fit".
[24] The case attracted media attention, with briefs filed by the AARP on Reid's behalf and the California Employment Law Council for Google.
[27] He is an editor of Anglicans Online and sat on the board of Doane Academy, an Episcopal Pre K-12 school in Burlington, New Jersey.