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Working at Microsoft, the Inside Scoop
bariswheel writes "Responding to the public interest, a long-time Apple and UNIX user/programmer, and a JPL/Caltech veteran, writes an insightful, articulate essay on the good, the bad, and the in-between experiences of working at Microsoft; concentrating on focus, unreality, company leadership, managers, source code, benefits and compensation, free soft drinks, work/life balance, Microsoft's not evil, and influence."
Aside from the obvious puff-piece nature of this article, it's a bit of a Trojan Horse. Under the auspices of a broad view of what life at Microsoft is like, the author gets to air out the PR spin that Microsoft's Not Evil in seven contrite paragraphs (the average number of paragraphs for each segment is closer to four).
Also, assign credibility inversely proportional to the distance from the source. This guy works there, okay so the only way to describe "work at Microsoft" is to be there, but come on, are we going to get objective information?
For the record, I once worked at Microsoft, and agree with his observations that the people there are like people elsewhere, and they're bright, and they're hard-working, etc. But, to equate individual ethical behavior somehow with a collective corporate ethos doesn't add up, the calculus is flawed. In my opinion, Microsoft as a corporation exhibits behavior that could be considered evil, certainly some/much of its behavior has been found in a court of law to be illegal.
As for the some of the author's observations:
Yes.
Thou doth protest too much.
Microsoft's ill-gotten gains were long the easy way to sustain the talent pipe-line. Market forces are catching up, and Microsoft is starting to have to compete on more equal footing with other companies to get talent in the door (no more, "you're guaranteed to be a millionaire in fiver years" promises). And, it's a little annoying to hear the Microsoft have-nots whine about this -- join the rest of the world folks.
It's just unavailable if the referall is slashdot.com, try copying and pasting the link into a different tab.
http://mirrordot.org/stories/fd94ec5aeadb1073126ec 3d15ec58564/index.html
What??? You can't post a story about Microsoft being anything other than the Evil Spawn of Hell, sent to crush all who'd stand between it and the total domination of the world.
/.
Don't they know? This is
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
Sheyah. They all say that until the chairs start flying.
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
I wonder if he got permission to publish that? I know it's vaguely approving in an infomercial kind of way, but there is genuine criticism too.
Working at Microsoft
Home Photos Writing Software Links About Résumé RSS
It seems like there's a lot of public interest in what it's like to work at Microsoft. Here's my personal persepctive on the good (+), the bad (-), and the in-between (=).
Background
As a long-time Apple and UNIX user/programmer, I never aspired to work at Microsoft. (And I'm still a little surprised to be here.) I've never despised Microsoft like so many people seem to do -- it's just that Microsoft products weren't a part of my world.
Then my wife got a job at Microsoft, so I needed to leave Caltech/JPL to work in Seattle. I didn't actually apply to Microsoft -- a friend of ours who worked there circulated my résumé and Microsoft responded rapidly and set up a last-minute interview. Although I had five other offers, Microsoft made the best impression.
And so, here I am. I've been working at Microsoft since October, 1999 as a full-time Software Design Engineer. In that time, I've worked for three teams in two divisions, and had six or seven different managers. Four products I've worked on have shipped, two more are in beta, and I've also "consulted" for many other teams across the company, thereby influencing directly and indirectly a large number of Microsoft's products.
Between my experience and my wife's, I think I've gotten a pretty solid feel for what it's like to work in a product group at Microsoft.
+ Focus
As much as I enjoyed working at Caltech/JPL, it wasn't until I got to Microsoft that I realized that there's an enormous difference between working for a software company and a company where software is just a step towards some other goal (space science, finance, medicine, retail, etc.).
Everyone at Microsoft "gets" software -- the managers, the administrative assistants, the vice presidents... Even many of the "blue collar" workers (cooks, janitors, bus drivers) know something about software -- it's not normal! At NASA, most managers and even some scientists had no real understanding of software or software development. Elevating the common denominator in this way makes Microsoft a wonderful workplace for people who love making software (even if it's far removed from the reality of "the real world", which can cause other problems, like overinflating the importance of software).
= Unreality
As a parent, I've come to understand that there's a wide gray area between overprotecting your children and creating a nuturing environment in which they can develop.
I think Microsoft struggles with a similar problem with its employees. Microsoft provides its employees with a nuturing environment in which they can be most productive. But like children, these employees also need to be grounded in reality and exposed to ideas that can be disruptive or even disturbing. Otherwise a sheltered monoculture can develop that's unhealthy for everyone involved.
It's hard for people who don't work at Microsoft's main campus to understand just how unreal the experience of working there can become. Some employees forget that most of the world doesn't have broadband wireless networking, high-end consumer electronics, luxury vehicles, and enough money that they don't need to live on a budget. Some employees spend so much time using Microsoft products, that they forget about the competition and/or lose touch with typical customers' needs.
+ Personal Freedom
One thing that's worth losing touch with is the strict work environment.
Microsoft gives software developers a lot of personal freedom over both the work and the work environment. I order my own supplies, customize my office as I see fit, schedule my own trips and meetings, and select my own training courses. I choose when I show up for work and when I leave, and what to wear while I'm there. I can eat on campus or off, reheat something from home in the kitchen or scavenge leftovers from meetings. I can even work remotely from home (within reason).
For the most part, I determine what I work
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Until I read the "Microsoft's not evil" part. This must be a hoax.
Ah - a feel-good story about someone who has had a good experience working there and hasn't seen any nefarious activities during his or her time there.
Of what value is it to place any confidence in such accounts? It is quite possible to have worked for the mob, be well treated, and not see any nefarious activity. It is not only possible but likely (and therefore infinitely reasonable) that such activities will be concealed from such an observer. If the activities of the organization in question are well documented and proven beyond a reasonable doubt to -in fact- be evil, then such "insider" accounts to the contrary have absolutely no relevance.
The site referenced in the article is already giving out 503's. Here is a google cache of the page:
w ww.qbrundage.com/michaelb/pubs/essays/working_at_m icrosoft.html+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=fir efox
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:ILiHKIGJa_oJ:
... 1000 times better than working at most jobs these days. And, if it really sucks at least you can put it on your resume for a better location and position at your next job.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I'm sure working at microsoft is a great career, running microsoft software is a different story.
So? We all have access to the source code for Firefox, PHP, Python, Perl, MONO, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Xen, KDevelop, Code::Blocks,
It's interesting. What this guy claims to be advantages, are precisely the FLAWS. Specially with Internet Explorer. Right now it would be much more secure if MS had open sourced it 6 years ago.
My friends and I knew a guy at our college (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology) that was hired on at Microsoft. Prior to leaving, he was always very open-minded about software usage, willing to try various options, be they proprietary or open source. After a while, he came back a changed man. He simply couldn't fathom how it was that we (as students) were using anything but Microsoft products, and would argument, sometimes vehemently, that we shouldn't be using *NIX or anything of that nature. It was truly scary.
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
With the new "live" approach, the new boss from Lotus Notes trying to turn the company, I really think MSFT (and I am no rabid fan) will compete well with SAP and peoplesoft. To bad its the wrong way to go... http://blog.tallsails.com/2006/04/19/google-hooks- up-w-salesforce-and-oracle.aspx
"Did I mention I've had six or seven managers in five years? Two were so awful that if they were hired into my current organization (even on another team), I'd quit on the spot."
One has to wonder why he didn't "quit on the spot" previously... say, about the time the second was assigned to supervise him.
In thirty years, working in mid-sized nonprofit, one Fortune 500 company, one ten-person startup, and two mid-sized for-profits, I've only had no managers "so awful that if they were hired into my current organization (even on another team) I'd quite on the spot." I've only had one so awful that if they were hired to supervise me, I'd quit... and when he was, I did. (Honesty compels me to say that it took me a year before I did... but I did).
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Out of Office Reply: I'm not currently in my office, which is being rennovated to accomodate a swimming pool and a helipad, but am instead on a business trip to Hawaii, for a training course in pearl diving. Once I return to Redmond, I'll be happy to get in touch with you, after sampling the fine quailty pizza left over from the last meeting about Vista. Take care!
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Before you attack a person with Ad Hominem charges, check out his CV. The gentleman has more scholarly awards than a roomful of SlashDot readers:
Awards
2003 Microsoft Gold Star Award
2003 US/International Patent (Pending) 304064.1 Common Query Runtime System and API
2003 US/International Patent (Pending) 303845.1 Query Optimizer System and Method
2003 US/International Patent (Pending) 301638.1 Query Intermediate Language (QIL) Method and System
2002 US Patent 1911574.1 XML Views Over Relational Data Using XML Schema
1996 NASA Grant NRA-96-10-OSS-055, A Collaborative Environment for the Space Interferometer Mission
1994 Caltech Hinrichs Leadership Award
1993 Caltech Don Shepard Essay Contest Winner
1992 Caltech Robert Andrews Millikan Scholar (again)
1991 Caltech Robert Andrews Millikan Scholar
1990 National Merit Scholar
1990 Oklahoma Academic All-State
1990 Valedictorian, Midwest City High School
1989 1st in seven-state region, American High School Mathematics Exam
1989 Principal Mallet Percussionist, Oklahoma All-State Band
1988 Principal Mallet Percussionist, Oklahoma All-State Orchestra
signature pending slashdot approval
I have to admit that even though I could feel the slant of this article I could not help but feel a little bit excited by this. Knowing Microsoft technologies is what pays the bills for me (C#) but I have tried to avoid becoming a fanboy for all things Microsoft. However, after reading this article, I cannot help but think that Microsoft is a pretty cool place to work. The .NET Framework is a massively impressive codebase that I would be psyched to work on. Not to mention that the environment is painted as more Google-esque than I previously realized. How many of us (who have all bashed Microsoft fairly and unfairly) would not drop our current job to take a position at Microsoft? I know that I would.
- Andrew
I meta-moderate because I care.
Until he said this: "No one ever says "Hey, let's go ruin company P" or other things that could be construed as "evil.""
He must have missed the news about Steve B, chairs and Google.
I was going to comment that I thought it was interesting that this guy was mentioned as being from a mixed UNIX, Apple, Caltech, and JPL background. I thought about why that might be relevant.
In any case, this guy is just one data point in trying to get a picture of "life on the inside" of Microsoft. You might find other pictures by reading my (and other MSFTies here - there are many) slashdot posts on the subject, or by reading the minimsft blog, or by trying to decipher the publicly-made statements by our PR people (or by PR agencies working on our behalf). All will paint slightly different pictures.
Unfortuneately i haven't been able to read the article - thanks slashdot effect - but I'm always curious to see MSFT people talking about "life on the inside", to see how their experiences compare to my own.
As far as my own background - as recently as college, i was saying things like "I will never work for a company that expects me to use NT - it's shit", as I coded away infront of my work provided SGI Indy. I gave up Windows after 3.1 and used OS/2, linux, and Solaris at home until college, when I switched to exclusively solaris and irix.
When I joined MS about 6 years ago i was still very anti-MS. I was joining to light a fire under the people that had burdened the world with so many bad things. I figured that peoeple just didn't have the unix expertise and outside world view that i brought to the table. If they only knew, I thought.
I probably made a lot of enemies those first few years, especially people on the outlook and exchange teams. But I also got a few private emails from product support guys saying "i loved reading that.. thank you for flaming person blah...our customers run into this all the time.. somebody should have said this sooner"
I was fond of pointing out that i used Pine against exchange-IMAP because at least Pine knew how to not block its UI threads while trying to access a message. (This is fixed in Outlook XP, Outlook 2003, and works pretty well in Outlook 12 betas, btw)
For a while, it seemed, my strategy of badgering MSFT people about how great *nix was and how much MS sucked was working. I was involved in some of the "how do we compete with {linux,solaris,apache} conversations even though I was some lowly tester off in Visual Studio. I was obnoxious, antagonistic, and I claimed big street cred working in the unix side of the industry. We were struggling at first to get dedicated, experienced people in place to understand the unix-competitive landscape, so much so that it made sense for "them" to talk to a bozo like me about it. Things are better now - there are smart people that work on understanding the *nix landscape full time.
The culture change I've observed here has been pretty satisfying. When I first complained that VB6 didn't work for debugging DLLs if you didn't have admin rights, a PM for VB told me "the NT security model is too hard, we're not going to bother figuring it out". That kind of crap doesn't fly _at all_ any more. We've really "got religion" around non-admin, secure-by-default, etc. That stuff keeps getting better and we're chipping away at the debt of design and code deficienies we have in the face of an always-on, hostile internet that nobody expected years and years ago [historians will note that the _first_ internet worm worked on unix machines.. and unix collectively has had a spotty and evolving approach to practical security.. ]
Naturally, MSFT has changed me as well. I used to come into discussions with the "UNIX roolz, MS suxx0rz" point of view. I was interviewing with a guy in NT and he was trying to ask me technical questions and I was trying to tell him how the NT design sucked because i read it in BYTE magazine. (i flunked that interview)
I've since learned that, actually, when I used to make those sorts of generalizations, I actually didn't know enough about anything to be running my big mouth. I was having an argument with some guy where I was talking about how the S
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Working AT Microsoft is probably quite nice.
Working WITH Microsoft (products) isn't.
And having to work AROUND Microsoft (bugs) most certainly isn't!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
1989 Principal Mallet Percussionist, Oklahoma All-State Band
1988 Principal Mallet Percussionist, Oklahoma All-State Orchestra
Yes, someone 15 years out of high school with such credentials on his CV is most likely a suckup and a twit. So you were best in your school at beating your mallet. Get over it; no one cares.
It's like people with "MCSE, MCP" or some other similar combo on their cards/CV. MCP means you've passed any single MS exam. By definition, every MCSE, MCSA, or otherwise is also an MCP. Adding MCP to another MS credential is redundant.
Other than the patents, I doubt the list you quote is that different from what many /.ers could claim. Oh wait, I don't have a gold star from my employer.
Twit indeed.
You're right. I would never question the authority of a "Principal Mallet Percussionist", especially one who mentions it on his CV.
Just don't let this guy near a machine room...
Here's the article on coral: http://www.qbrundage.com.nyud.net:8090/michaelb/pu bs/essays/working_at_microsoft.html
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
A really interesting article, but his take on the whole "Microsoft is not evil" thing by looking at what it's like to be employed there reminds me of the Hank Scorpio episode of The Simpsons. Do you mind helping out with those enemy soldiers on your way out? They're trying to destroy the doomsday weapon we've been working so hard to finish.
Sure it's a fine place to work and the folks are all just family people trying to solve customers' problems... It's just that their customers are IT Managers who want to lock down Windows so that bonehead users can't email javascript files to each other (even as attachments) but apparently have no problem with embedded vbscript in email.
Compare the assertion ``all of the division heads (and their staff, and their staff) are top-notch'' with the observation ``In contrast, most of the middle management should be tossed.''
It seems to me that a large responsibility of upper level management is to hire, train and retain middle-management. If the high level folks can't make good decisions on promoting rank and file to management or in attracting quality management from outside, how can they be trusted to not run the company into the ground?
My definition of an evil company is a little different, but Microsoft certainly fits it.
An evil company plays zero-sum games (loss for you = gain for us) with its own customers.
Playing zero-sum with your competitors is standard; no problem.
Playing zero-sum with your partners, distribution chain, and potential aquisitions is rather scummy, and Microsoft is one of the few companies that does this routinely and isn't blackballed.
But playing zero-sum with your customers, the ones who pay your bills, shows you have a position so powerful that you can afford to tell your own customers to sit on it and spin, and still win.
To me that is evil.
I don't need to give examples here (I hope) of the times when Microsoft has deliberately screwed its own customer base over for its own benefit; I'm sure you can think of plenty. But they are all, to my mind, evidence of abuse of monopoly, and also evil.
I was a contractor at Microsoft from 1995-1997, working on MSN.com when it first came out, before Internet Explorer existed. As a result, I was apart of the permatemp class action lawsuit.
My Microsoft experience was both good and bad.
I got to work with some really talented and highly skilled people and learned a ton. The original lead engineer on Slate.com was a great guy and mentored me on his own, even though I wasn't a "blue badge" and not entitled to such perks. He had been recruited out of college back in the late 80s so he was a millionaire. He retired a few years later after his second marriage/wedding since he had already lost his first marriage to Microsoft and didn't wish to repeat the experience. He also told me that only people hired on at or promoted to a certain level got really lucrative stock options. From what I saw, he was right.
I shared an office at one point with an amazing programmer, super smart and super nice guy. I remember him telling me that he had to learn to not care so much about his work because the business and marketing departments always rule in the end. He had a product he had worked on that he was really proud of, the users were really happy and he was excited about working on more features. He never got to because the product was outsourced and no more versions were going to be released, it was just to be supported as is and it didn't matter if the support was mediocre, just that it was cheaper. He said he found that a hard pill to swallow because he really believed in producing great products but he learned to accept it and was "watching the clock" meaning waiting his 5 years for his stock to vest. I met several fulltimers watching the clock and they seemed to me to be the some of the most talented people there.
I met many people who worked very hard and others who were coasting, some arrogant and rude with no social skills whatsoever and some genuine, amicable and highly skilled, both fulltimers and contractors.
I worked with great managers and incompetent ones. One manager was so bad that when the first round of contractor layoffs happened at one point, he cut a really skilled programmer who was vital to many projects in favor of keeping around the pretty, no experience or technical ability, woman that he was boinking, much to the dismay of the rest of us who had to workaround the incompetence of both of them. He was arrogant and had a mullet, a paradox beyond comprehension.
I did not envy the people who became fulltimers during this time. Compared to contractor pay which included overtime, their pay was cut in half and their hours stayed the same or increased. One friend had to move somewhere cheaper due to the pay cut and carried 3 pagers at all times resulting in her moving closer to work as well. Her first year of employment was what was then called the "probation year" meaning she would not receive any stock options until after that first year. She and other people who went fulltime soon realized that the stock options were not going to make them millionaires but simply restore the compensation that had been cut when they took the salaried fulltime job. I knew several talented people who left before their options vested as a result.
Some contractors-to-fulltimers I knew did ok with stock options meaning they were able to gain an extra 200-250k and after taxes bought themselves a nice house and/or car. But no one retired early.
I knew several fulltimers who once they hit their 5 year mark, cashed out their stock and left the Microsoft with propriertary information on which they based a new company, hoping to get bought out by Microsoft and make more money. Some were sued, some weren't sued but didn't get bought out as they hoped, some did.
Overall, it was an interesting place to be during the time I was there. That said, I'm inclined to think that the author's experience is not the norm given the high status at which he entered the company. If he had come in as an entry level contractor or programmer, his experience would be much different.
- tokengeekgrrl
At Microsoft, I've had access to the source code for Halo 1 & 2, Internet Explorer, MDAC, MSXML, the .NET Frameworks and CLR, SQL Server, SQLXML, Virtual PC, Visual Studio, Windows, the Xbox and Xbox Live, and probably several other projects that I've forgotten about. Does it get better than this?
uhh, yes, it does. Maybe you should visit www.gnu.org.
The only difference is that when *I* look at operating system source code, I don't have to sign non-compete agreements, and I dont have to agree to fund my existance with money gotten from business practices that are greedy, dishonest, and harmful to the marketplace.
And I dont have to live in seattle. zing!!! (j/k)
Why stick up for big business?
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;-)
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Kindda minimalist, not to mention that it doesn't match the article title....
Horns are really just a broken halo.
I don't think that Microsoft has their talent spread too thin. The real issue is not to my mind the lack of focus in product improvements but the lack of technical maturity of the systems as a whole. I would point out that in 2000, Microsoft finally came around to technology that had been in use for nearly seventeen years (Kerberos). In short the real problem is their approach to the market, not spreading themselves too thin, etc.
;-)
Win9x for example, was a real improvement over Win3.x because it added some real technical advantages, but it was sort of a hybrid or shim approach to technical problems that ideally could have been handled better if DOS was designed better from the start (anyone remember what QDOS really stood for?).
Microsoft is the proto-Wal-mart of the software world (you know, the seller of cheap plastic junk). The approach has generally been that it doesn't have to be better, just cheaper and more appealing to the lowest common denominator. This price advantage of Microsoft has been probably on the whole beneficial to the industry in that it has made computing more ubiquitous and therefore has helped the development of the internet and even open source as a global phenominon. However, Microsoft software tends to be poorly thought out and poorly implemented.
The NT architecture is, after all, a severely crippled reimplementation of VMS with a nice GUI running on it and some Windows emulation
The rush to market and the unwillingness to spend the time necessary to get things right has meant a great deal of trouble for users of Microsoft software. Indeed even when Microsoft attempted to reimplement UNIX (their Xenix product that they later sold to SCO), it was worst in class.
In essence, Microsoft is largely a marketing company that sells cheap, poorly implemented software. Bad systems trump bad people, so the problem is not a lack of talent so much as a system in place that prevents people from making good software.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I don't mean to dis this guy, but this award list should not be used as a demonstration of impressiveness. It's very typical of a person in his situation. He's doing fine, but there are PLENTY of /. readers doing just as well, thanks. Of course there are also 13 year olds but...
While at NASA he got a grant -- from NASA. Internal grants of institutions like this are generally easier to come by than external ones (trust me, I have many), and more importantly, they're usually the result of a large number of people working on a proposal. Likewise, he has four patents listed, all variants of the same item: almost unquestionably this is joint work he's done with as a team member while at Microsoft. This is all good stuff to have on your resume, but it's not atypical.
Microsoft's "ethical" and "customer oriented" practices are explained when you consider that Gates is a thief. Ever see a guy on the street hawking pirated CD's who was a dick to his customers? Thieves are bottom-dwellers, they make the nicest impression on as many people as possible.
This is very different from being a bully, which is to make the worst impression on people. Microsoft isn't a bully. It would call attention to their gaping lack of R&D.
Yes, I know the company spends billions of dollars. But somehow it's always the smaller, independent programmers who keep inventing things like, the web browser (Andreesen), instant messaging (MIT), network authentication (MIT), the window server (MIT), microkernels (academia), encryption (academia), type-safe objects (Sun/academia), WYSIWG (Apple), spreadsheets (Lotus), vector web (Macromedia), typesetting (Knuth), video editing (Adobe), ergonomic keyboards (not Microsoft), blogs (not Microsoft), mpeg compression (not Microsoft), p2p distribution (not Microsoft).
When you are consistently this far behind the technological curve, it comes as no surprise that you bend over backwards.
Companies (countries, races, etc.) are not "evil" or "good", and they do not have "intentions." Star Trek is science fiction -- there is no Borg mind.
I actually entirely disagree here. Corporations, especially large ones, tend to suffer from what I call "hive mind" or "borg mind." In reality, both metaphores are surprisingly apt.
The complex "hive mind" behaviors in bees, ants, and similar insects occurs because the insects communicate with eachother via scents and/or body language. Thus behavior spreads from insect to insect until you see what looks like a more elaborate mind when it is really the result of a system of minimally programmed units which communicate with eachother. The concept of the borg mind in Star Trek is not that far removed as it is based on the complex information exchange between the different units.
In any sufficiently large organization, you get structures which provide a great degree of organizational inertia. In other words, at some point it doesn't even matter what Steve Ballmer really thinks, the actual organization can only continue to evolve in its own niche. Other management interests, stockholder interests, and so forth, will see to that. This brings me to my next point: Corporations, though they seem to personify non-conscious forces seem to personify the sort of collective mind that we see in the insect world. Except that we communicate via sound vibrations, pushing buttons on a keyboard, or making marks on paper.
The final point is that for anyone who has ever worked in a corporate environment (I used to work for Microsoft), it is very easy for the workers to begin to believe the propaganda of the company. This tendency actually increases as one goes up the management chain because often company loyalty (and gullibility) are rewarded with promotions at least as far as middle management, and for upper level management, they are sufficiently isolated from what goes on at the ground level that they don't have sufficient feedback. So the corporate mind is self-sustaining, viral, and can take over your thought processes. One ends up with a corporate cult, and Microsoft is no exception (but is rather the rule).
I prefer working on my own in a small consulting business. Sooner or later we will need a management infrastructure, but when this occurs, I intend to take a close look at how these problems can be solved.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
"Seriously, who do you folks think you are. Besides being, on the whole, the basement and server closet dwelling *nix geeks wearing sandals and shorts and playing MMPOGs or coding..."
You got that sterotype wrong. I'm sitting in a major corp office space with a red stapler, TPS reports, cubicals and all. And if you are not a POSIX type you must be that "other" blowhard type that cracks us up even more.
I'm glad you asked. I am not always "sure" (the perpetual "the grass is always greener _somewhere else_" problem), but I think I am happy where I am and this is a good fit.
.NET and Winforms now ;). I only view coding as a means to solve a problem.
Before you stop reading - something to be aware of is that MS has a position called "SDE/T" - Software Design Engineer in Test. They've been phasing out the traditional "STE" (software test engineer) role. I've been an SDE/T since my hire date.
I originally interviewed for an SDE role with a couple teams, one of them being NT, and those didn't go well. It was the beginning of the reality check for me about what I knew and what I didn't. There were coding problems they asked me to solve in SDE interviews that I didn't solve acceptably. The recruiter would ask a quesiton like "rate your understanding of C++ on a scale of 1 to 10". Me being the hotshot college jerkoff I was said "9". Then she was like "ok, what do you need to do to become a 10?". Then I thought about it a bit and said something like "write a C++ compiler, hang out in comp.lang.*, etc". Then she asked "so why haven't you done that?"
Oh.
In these developer interviews, they were asking very hardcore questions about programming, sometimes for programming's sake. I don't code for coding's sake. I started coding back in 5th grade on an apple ][. I cut my teeth with turbo pascal and TASM. I graduated to C in 9th grade (via summer camps and stuff). I had plenty of exposure to programming, a good bit of exposure to languages, etc. But i still can't tell you what all of the bitwise operators do in C without looking at a manual. I can't tell you _anything_ about MFC (except that I am glad we have
I don't write code for the sake of coding, and I don't like memorizing the details of uninteresting things (even though I like trivia).
So, when you're interviewing with someone that writes a C optimizer for a living, how can you say that you're a solid "10" at C programming. Compared to who? them? Not unless you've also written a commercially shipping C compiler. When you're talking to the guys that shuffle bits in binary headers in the guts of the kernel, how can you say with a straight face that you get shift-right and shift-left confused because you never use them ? That was me.
That was the perspective I never got until i started at MS. I was used to being at the top of my classes in school and I rarely ran across someone that had the same problem solving skills I had. That's what I came to my MS interviews with.
For an SDE position, they're after someone that is passionte about coding. Someone that lives and breathes it. They want to write code when they're not at work. That's not me. I do some coding at home, but only when there's some especially irksome problem at hand that nobody has a good solution to, and that I think i can pull off. When I'm not at work, I'm more inclined to want to work on my car. The car could be better, and I can't afford to pay a garage to work on it, so I've learned to do it myself. I'll never get ASE certified, but I'll learn how to do what I need to do to a car to accomplish my goals. Nothing more.
The position I have actually has a fair bit of design and coding. But it's not shipping code - it's code that tests or optimizes the testing of the actual shipping product. Automated testing is the name of the game at Microsoft. I was the guy behind the the automated testing system that ran all of the developer tools tests for a couple years. There's a lot of moving parts in that system. It worked in spite of itself (it was all written in VB, ran against a single SQL box, but served thousands of 24/7 automation execution machines.. with hundreds of thousands of automated tests). I knew the code to that thing well.. but not because I liked the code (i didn't), but because I liked what it did. I liked the power it gave our test org, and the quality we could drive into
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
If anything, Microsoft seems to have the opposite problem, in which employees sometimes design or cut a feature or product without fully appreciating the huge impact their decision can have outside the company.
Among the different forms of evil, that is actually a major one: if you have a lot of power and impact, it is your duty to think about the consequences of your actions carefully, otherwise you indeed are evil.
The reality is that Microsoft is made up of mostly honest, earnest, hardworking people. People with families. People with hardships. People with ordinary and extraordinary lives.
Yes, but the reality is that Microsoft's competitors are made up of mostly honest, earnest, and hardworking people as well. The problem is that Microsoft's senior management has adopted policies and strategies in the past that unfairly deprive the mostly honest, earnest, and hardworking people in those other companies of the just rewards of their hard work.
No one ever says "Hey, let's go ruin company P"
Actually, some people are on record saying that. People like Ballmer, for example. And that's what people refer to when they say "Microsoft is evil", namely that the people in charge have behaved unethically (not to mention illegally).
But there's one thing people do that really drives me nuts: anthropomorphization.
It drives me nuts, too--in particular, it drives me nuts that corporations have managed to get the rights of real persons in areas like free speech. However, given that they have, it seems only fair that at least we anthropomorphize them when we talk about them.
Overall, I think there are lots of good, well-meaning people working at Microsoft. But as long as there are on-going legal problems over monopolistic practices and as long as people like Ballmer are in charge, there continues to be reason to apply the label "evil" to the company as an entity, no matter what fraction of the employees are not evil.
I have a couple friends who work at MS. My impression is that how much you like your job there very much depends on what you're working on. One of my friends works on .NET, and he loves his job. I mean, the man writes programming languages for a living. He's got a great job! Of course he loves it.
My other friend, on the other hand, works on a product that I will not name, except to say that MS totally undervalues its importance and does not dedicate nearly enough resources to it. Although I wouldn't say that he hates his job, I would say that he, at very best, tolerates it.
Regardless of your specific job at MS, I will say that Redmond is the most disappointing site you will ever see. You would think that the headquarters of the world's largest software maker would be impressive, right? Wrong. It's like every other crappy suburb that you've ever seen, except all the office parks are owned by one company. Lame. Although you don't have to live in Redmond to work at MS, your only alternative is to live in Seattle and make the > 1hr commute every day.