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What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

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Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#131

Post by ido »

FlorianRappl wrote: post #48
pinewurst wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Microsoft interview experience remains awful, Satya or not. I’ve tried a few times but with one exception I was treated like dirt every time by recruiters and interviewers. (Edit) One interviewer blew cigarette smoke in my face, for example. That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of decent people there.

I interviewed with most of the "tech giants" and Microsoft's process was by far the best (professional and down-to-earth). Maybe this was due to the target (language team), maybe due to the location (Redmond), but at least with me they left a great impression.

I think it really depends on the individuals you interview with. I've been through Google's supposedly infamous interview process and had a very positive experience (even tho I didn't get an offer).

Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#132

Post by com2kid »

throwaway713 wrote: post #105

Reading articles like this always makes me wonder where all this crazy drama is going on. I work at one of FAANG, and I go in each day, code/analyze things from 8-5, chat with some people about their cycling or cooking hobbies, then go home. If people are having affairs and flying to resorts, then I'm just totally oblivious to it. Either that, or I'm the most boring 28 year old that works there.

None of the engineering teams I was on at MS had any of this stuff going on.

Heck I was surprised she was being flown first class, with all the cutbacks everyone I know at MS for the last ~4 years has been flying coach even for their first N international flights each year! (I forget what N is.)

Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#133

Post by chris_wot »

fc373745 wrote: post #115

I really don't know why I read what I just read. There's a lot of red flags - going to clubs, going to burning man, having an affair, renting a penthouse apartment in freaking Seattle. I'm not passing judgement on those who wanna live life to the fullest, but the failure of achieving the white picketed fence type of life she originally wanted to live is totally on her and not on Microsoft at all.

This comment is close to how I feel. Whilst things happened that weren’t great, some self reflection on her own behaviour might be worthwhile.

I say this as someone who was once in this situation.

Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#134

Post by seanmcdirmid »

com2kid wrote: post #132
throwaway713 wrote: post #105

Reading articles like this always makes me wonder where all this crazy drama is going on. I work at one of FAANG, and I go in each day, code/analyze things from 8-5, chat with some people about their cycling or cooking hobbies, then go home. If people are having affairs and flying to resorts, then I'm just totally oblivious to it. Either that, or I'm the most boring 28 year old that works there.

None of the engineering teams I was on at MS had any of this stuff going on. Heck I was surprised she was being flown first class, with all the cutbacks everyone I know at MS for the last ~4 years has been flying coach even for their first N international flights each year! (I forget what N is.)

Sales people often fly biz class because their customers are. I don't know if it is the same here, and overseas offices have different rules than Redmond (MS China we never got biz class even though many of us flew way more than N times a year on 12 hour flights).

Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#135

Post by davidivadavid »

neilv wrote: post #21

College students are falling all over themselves, learning each FAANG's interview process, drilling large numbers of problems for the whiteboard tests/hazings, being frontloaded with a bunch of VC dogma about startups, learning lousy frameworks before they have to, etc. But I'm not sure they have much idea what industry and particular companies are actually like.

That's because big tech companies are the new IB/MC. You see the same types of behaviors there.

Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#136

Post by Yhippa »

chris_wot wrote: post #133
fc373745 wrote: post #115

I really don't know why I read what I just read. There's a lot of red flags - going to clubs, going to burning man, having an affair, renting a penthouse apartment in freaking Seattle. I'm not passing judgement on those who wanna live life to the fullest, but the failure of achieving the white picketed fence type of life she originally wanted to live is totally on her and not on Microsoft at all.

This comment is close to how I feel. Whilst things happened that weren’t great, some self reflection on her own behaviour might be worthwhile. I say this as someone who was once in this situation.

There are always good reasons why people decide to do things the way they do. At some point in people's lives there come times where you have to make a decision and learn that there are consequences for it.

I think I didn't have much to compare to in my 20's (like social media posts) so I made plenty of bad decisions in my life. I was lucky to survive, learn, and calibrate my decision making process.

I'm glad you came out okay. It seems that the auther of this post may not learn or is possibly susceptible to being in this same situation again.

Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#137

Post by overgard »

thanatropism wrote: post #83
overgard wrote: post #68

> The people I worked with were extremely closed minded. Most of them with many years of experience working in a corporation, so even more closed minded, only caring about their manager’s approval. I was devastated. My team members were the most fake people I have met still to this day. I cannot even explain how terrible it was for me to have to help them, show interest and pretend that I support what they’re doing.…

I don’t know which post by “The Last Psychiatrist” I want to recommend, maybe you need to read his entire blog.

I love Last Psychiatrist, I pretty much have :-)

Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#138

Post by skybrian »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #122
rgoulter wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You only have to remember that FAAMNGS are committed to their shareholders By committing only to shareholders, they miss out on other stakeholders: employees, suppliers, customers, community. (Jonathan Haidt discusses at 18:50 onwards in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOu_8yoqZoQ When the company emphasises only shareholders, they miss out on building cooperative relationships with the other stakeholde…

I say that meaning their fiduciary responsibility is to their shareholders. Their other stakeholders are by nature secondary. I'll have to check that video out but unless the shareholders themselves vote to prioritize employees and others above profit, the company and, more directly, upper management risks lawsuits and loosing their own lucrative positions.

Not a lawyer but it seems like in practice, the fiduciary responsibility thing seems like more of an ideology that some people buy into than a legal constraint? Management can choose to do all sorts of crazy things and argue that it's in the company's best interest. (But also read Matt Levine on how everything bad is also securities fraud.)

The thing that really aligns employee incentives with shareholders is restricted stock and options. Employees directly benefit when the stock goes up, so of course it creates a culture where most people want it to go up and aren't happy when it goes down.

Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#139

Post by cperciva »

ljiljana wrote: post #15

> A few guys working both for Microsoft and Partners were treating me like a cute puppy or telling me they wanted to have sex with me while drunk, but all of it seemed minor and acceptable — I was getting so much in return. jesus, how is this minor and acceptable? i'm a woman in engineering and I can not even imagine having to deal with something like this. Is it that Marketing is that much different? Or am I just lu…

I've never had to deal with anything like this at work (no surprise there, I run my own company and my only employee is my brother) but in my other life as a classical musician I've experienced sexual harassment from drunk colleagues. On one occasion it was followed up the next day with "I said some things when I was drunk which I probably shouldn't have said... but you know, let me know if you change your mind", which is rather impressive as a non-apology.

I don't think of this as being minor or acceptable, but I don't think it's any more widespread in computing than in other fields either.

Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#140

Post by hamburglar »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #101

In many ways, the piece is basically a story about someone young and naive becoming an adult, so to speak. That process gets conflated with "working for Microsoft." I'm a former military wife. The military does a lot of moving around. Affairs are common when spouses are separated. Etc. So that kind of thing is hardly something peculiar to Microsoft. It also sounds like she is European and speaks English as a second l…

Seems to me it's a story about someone who's too impressed with a lot of superficial stuff. The appearance of a "perfect life", business travel, expensive hotels, uber rides (?), overpriced seattle apartments with a great view that you can't actually afford, etc. The irony is that these things are all rather unimpressive to those that actually have them within reach, so citing them as evidence of your lavish lifestyle tends to mean you don't actually have one.
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