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Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

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Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#71

Post by std_throwaway »

d23 wrote: post #66

This was my experience of Ballmer-era Microsoft management hires at my previous company. They were the perfect combination of narcissism, manipulativeness, toxicity, and above all else, idiocy. They did a lot of damage, probably irrevocably. They were know-nothing bullies who liked to yell if you ever questioned them, completely convinced of their own superiority. I've heard a lot of similar stories about these peopl…

Usually you call them tools. They turn your screw at the command of their superior in whichever way they are told to. They provide great leverage for a weak upper management.

Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#72

Post by JohnFen »

martin1b wrote: post #58
username90 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, I have never once felt "Wow, a new Microsoft product, can't wait to buy it!". Instead it is usually more like "Oh shit, a new Mirosoft product, I hope I wont be forced to buy it to stay compatible".

Apparently you've never used Visual Studio. It is amazing. Many of Microsoft's products are simple and boring at first glance. However, when you really want to flex it to do something powerful, the features are usually there. Their products have so many years of development in them and it shows because their products stand the test of time, particularly in the enterprise. I'm glad there are lot of other vendors enter…

> Apparently you've never used Visual Studio. It is amazing.

I've used it heavily for years, and I disagree with this assessment. I avoid it whenever I have the option.

Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#73

Post by bryanlarsen »

anon1m0us wrote: post #55
cbanek wrote: post #4

As a woman who worked at MSFT through the Ballmer era, I have to agree with this whole article. It really nailed it. Especially this part near the end where I never felt it would get better: "But my former female colleagues who reviewed this document in advance of its publication are unconvinced. None of them report feeling emboldened by the new Microsoft. They continue to withhold reports of discriminatory managemen…

How do you get your employer to hear you? I don't think these problems are isolated to women. I think women just don't understand that there's an "old boys club" that attacks other men too. I know lots of men who say the same things. Pitting employees against each other. The masters recruiting spies from among the ranks to report dissenting comments from the servants. Cutting back on coffee breaks. Not being allowed…

Almost everybody experiences bullying at some point in their life. That makes them feel they understand the problem. But it's the dose that makes the poison. Some people and groups are at the receiving end of so much of it that to say "we all have been bullied" really belittles what the targeted groups receive.

Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#74

Post by com2kid »

Shebanator wrote: post #8

An interesting article, which I think accurately describes my brief time at Microsoft during the Ballmer era (our startup was acquired after the bubble burst). But his definition of "made men" seems very vague and very convenient. The people who Nadella appointed to higher positions were almost entirely people who had been at Microsoft for many years. Why are some "made men" and some are not? The definition seems pri…

There used to be a program at Microsoft where employees who were "destined to do great things" would be pulled out, given special training, and then have their careers accelerated.

On one hand, it is sort of a good idea if you can truly pick the "winners" (and some of the people who went through the program did amazing things!) but, well, in hindsight I think everyone reading this can see how internal biases would be reflected in who got picked for the program.

I don't know too much about the program, and I don't even remember now what is was called, but engineers who'd been there longer would talk about it sometimes.

Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#75

Post by commandlinefan »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #73
anon1m0us wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you get your employer to hear you? I don't think these problems are isolated to women. I think women just don't understand that there's an "old boys club" that attacks other men too. I know lots of men who say the same things. Pitting employees against each other. The masters recruiting spies from among the ranks to report dissenting comments from the servants. Cutting back on coffee breaks. Not being allowed…

Almost everybody experiences bullying at some point in their life. That makes them feel they understand the problem. But it's the dose that makes the poison. Some people and groups are at the receiving end of so much of it that to say "we all have been bullied" really belittles what the targeted groups receive.

> of so much of it

... but how do you know? How could anybody know that?

Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#76

Post by bryanlarsen »

commandlinefan wrote: post #75
bryanlarsen wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost everybody experiences bullying at some point in their life. That makes them feel they understand the problem. But it's the dose that makes the poison. Some people and groups are at the receiving end of so much of it that to say "we all have been bullied" really belittles what the targeted groups receive.

> of so much of it ... but how do you know? How could anybody know that?

By listening

Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#77

Post by com2kid »

vezycash wrote: post #10

>The Microsoft of the 2000s, under Steve Ballmer, was almost exactly the opposite (of gates). >Bruised and battered by the consent decree handed down by the DoJ for the very same ambition that brought it to dominance, Ballmer’s Microsoft was sales-forward and CAUTIOUS. >It was... nervously clutching its pearls at the approach of Google in its rearview mirror People bash Steve Ballmer for missing Search, Social Networ…

> Microsoft was Caged. Had it's wings clipped. Had a huge target on its back. In case you did't know, any complaint by say Google in its early days and Microsoft would have been broken up!

So much this. During orientation on my first day a representative from legal came in and told us, among other things, what types of metaphors we were allowed to use in emails. "No football metaphors, no explicit or implied violence, we do not 'crush the competition', we 'work hard to show customers how good our products are'."

Hard to get a team amped up about working in an exciting new space when you are literally not allowed to get a team amped up.

Then again, right before the iPhone launched, a market research report went around the mobile division that showed "consumers in the US will never pay for their phones, they are too addicted to free subsidized cell phone deals."

Long ago when I was just a couple years in, I was "corrected" when I said we should stop shipping bad keyboards and relying on OEMs to make the keyboard not bad. Someone rather senior told me that wasn't the reason at all as to why we were shipping a sub-par keyboard. I never was told exactly why Windows Mobile 6.x shipped poor quality on screen keyboards.

Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#78

Post by Mo3 »

JohnFen wrote: post #72
martin1b wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently you've never used Visual Studio. It is amazing. Many of Microsoft's products are simple and boring at first glance. However, when you really want to flex it to do something powerful, the features are usually there. Their products have so many years of development in them and it shows because their products stand the test of time, particularly in the enterprise. I'm glad there are lot of other vendors enter…

> Apparently you've never used Visual Studio. It is amazing. I've used it heavily for years, and I disagree with this assessment. I avoid it whenever I have the option.

I think he meant Visual Studio Code. It truly is fantastic.

Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#79

Post by ephermata »

com2kid wrote: post #74
Shebanator wrote: post #8

An interesting article, which I think accurately describes my brief time at Microsoft during the Ballmer era (our startup was acquired after the bubble burst). But his definition of "made men" seems very vague and very convenient. The people who Nadella appointed to higher positions were almost entirely people who had been at Microsoft for many years. Why are some "made men" and some are not? The definition seems pri…

There used to be a program at Microsoft where employees who were "destined to do great things" would be pulled out, given special training, and then have their careers accelerated. On one hand, it is sort of a good idea if you can truly pick the "winners" (and some of the people who went through the program did amazing things!) but, well, in hindsight I think everyone reading this can see how internal biases would be…

There were at least two programs when I was there. I heard a lot more about them under Ballmer than under Satya.

HiPo -- for junior to mid level -- special training, networking, and seminars. MiniMSFT comments section mentions this from time to time.

Bench -- for mid to later career, usually on the way to "partner" or above level -- same as HiPo, but may be asked to work on a project with others in Bench, may see attention from VPs mentoring the group.

Neither one had any official impact on ratings, rewards, or career velocity. What they did do, however, was establish an elite and help that elite network across the company.

Re: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

#80

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

Someone1234 wrote: post #65
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Call me skeptical, but there's not a whole lot of products I willfully pay Microsoft for. I have met many, many people who gladly pay for Office (specifically, Excel) or Visual Studio, so much does it increase their productivity. I'm not one of them, but I'm not an accountant and the code bases I work with are small and don't require VS's incredible tooling. There are also adherents of the cult of Visio, but I hone…

I strongly agree on Office/Excel. Fantastic product suite (except maybe Outlook which is long in the tooth/essentially unimproved for the last ten years). Visual Studio I'll slightly disagree on. I resent it. When VSCode, an electron application, can run lag/stutter/micro-freeze free and Visual Studio an IDE written in C++ cannot you know the codebase has become unmaintainable. This isn't a recent phenomenon either.…

I'm also not a fan of VS. From my perspective it is an overly complicated bloated software. But I think that way about quite a lot of software.

However, the developers I've spoken with who love it tell me that it has some insanely good tooling that is just unmatched by anything else. I'm not even in a position to know what they're talking about or why it's so important to them, but that doesn't mean they don't know what they're talking about.

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