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Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

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Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#31

Post by plinkplonk »

rsbaskin wrote: post #26
plinkplonk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Laptops are officially only for managers and Program managers." Heh! That's what I thought :-p Not surprised to hear MS works that way :-). Funny way to economise, making laptops status symbols. I think Google gives devs nice laptops and is probably better off for it.

It's not really a status symbol. PMs tend to be more mobile, presenting in meetings and such, and need laptops. Devs and testers get much better desktops.

"It's not really a status symbol."

A status symbol is, by definition, something only or mostly upper echelons of a hierarchy can get, with fig leaf justifications about why the folks on the lower rungs are "not worthy" of them. The surest way to make anything (a private office, a parking space, a laptop) a status symbol is to mandate that only people above a certain level in the hierarchy can get one.(Note that I am responding to a comment that states that laptops are only for managers and devs have to get "loaners". Other people at MS seem to disagree that this is the case)

"Devs and testers get much better desktops."

Good desktops aren't an excuse for not having good laptops.

The association of laptops with presentations and meetings conveys a lot about MS's approach to development. No wonder the place is infested with multiple layers of redundant management. I wonder how MS Research fares? Do Peyton Jones and co go laptopless too?

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#32

Post by seanalltogether »

dikbrouwer wrote: post #13

I'm a bit confused by this post. The author seems to celebrate a private office. I strongly prefer open work spaces that you share with others, as do many companies I've worked with/seen. Care to share your opinion? I'm curious...

I'm right there with you. The informal collaboration possible in an open space is so much more productive for me.

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#33

Post by nostrademons »

plinkplonk wrote: post #20
checoivan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laptops are officially only for managers and Program managers. As a dev/test you can get a loaner for a presentation or find one, somehow.

"Laptops are officially only for managers and Program managers." Heh! That's what I thought :-p Not surprised to hear MS works that way :-). Funny way to economise, making laptops status symbols. I think Google gives devs nice laptops and is probably better off for it.

The number of hours of work-from-home that Google gets out of those laptops more than justifies their cost. Hell, I'm posting this from my work laptop, taking a break from writing out a whole bunch of use cases and product design decisions.

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#34

Post by sriramk »

checoivan wrote: post #18
plinkplonk wrote: post #17

I asked this in the comments section but it disappeared into thin air with no notification on what was happening(say, held for moderation etc).So I'll ask it here. Maybe an HN reader who works for MS might know the answer. From the article, "All managers have laptops. Most prety good ones." Do developers (testers etc) have laptops (pretty good ones)? Or are they "management only" perks? (fwiw all the bodyshopping com…

Laptops are officially only for managers and Program managers. As a dev/test you can get a loaner for a presentation or find one, somehow.

5-year Microsoftie here (mostly PM, some dev)

Sorry - I don't think that's true. When I was a dev I had a laptop. It is highly dependent on the team you work for. I know a lot of devs who have laptops. In fact, most things hardware related are highly related to the team you work for. Since MSFT works on such a variety of things, hardware needs tends to vary dramatically

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#35

Post by bmk2000 »

pacifi30 wrote: post #23

The thing here is not about if Microsoft let their developers use all the new shiny technology but the point to stress here is how much percentage everyday does a developer at MS actually codes, I bet it wont be more than 20%. I am so sure of this because being at Amazon since April last year, I havent coded more then 700 lines of code, bulk of which was supporting new features in the already behemoth software. I alw…

That sucks for you. I've been working at Microsoft for about 4 years. First 2 years as a tester, and the latter 2 years as a dev (still a dev). When I was a tester, I coded 4 days a week with 1 day a week for other investigations (live site issues, meetings, etc.) As a dev, the ratio haven't changed. I still code at least 4 days a week (80% of the time) with 1 day a week for meetings, investigations, documentations, etc. We have a separate operations team that carries pagers. They will do their investigation before I get called. For past 6 months, I got called once. Just in case you are wondering, I work under the Windows Live org.

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#36

Post by kvdr »

jessedhillon wrote: post #5
pedalpete wrote: post #2

I've never read a post by Richard before, I don't want to seem like I'm giving him a hard time, and I'm a happy Windows user, so I'm a big fan of his work. But this article isn't inspiring from a developer perspective. I've worked in a big IT department (300 people I think),as well as start-ups, so I'm not completely blind to the structures of different work environments. When Richard first mentioned that everybody h…

When the first few lines tell me about how surprised I will be, I expected to hear that people are encouraged to be creative, take risks, try working on project that might end up going nowhere -- in other words, that they promote a hacker culture. Unfortunately, the things that the author focused on are not inspiring. Being able to paint your office? Great, but how about week-long hackathons where people can code on…

>> Great, but how about week-long hackathons where people can code on whatever they want? Showing the three-level branch hierarchy of your repository doesn't seem to tell me a great story about what it's like to be a dev at MS. Not because there's anything wrong with the branch structure; if you work at a place where coders are given a lot of liberty and freedom, there should be more interesting things to talk about.

I guess those can be counted as special cases and not pertaining to day-to-day working. The main point to gain from the post it seems is that its not a pain to work in such a complex environment. This is not some web or phone app, its a huge undertaking and how it works in a precise routine.

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#37

Post by bmk2000 »

listrophy wrote: post #6

I turned down Microsoft when they recruited me in college. Wow, what a great decision. Now, I run a software firm where no one has an office, everyone pairs (including owners and interns), we have a /slightly/ better ratio than 1 test per 100 SLOC, etc.

I'm not understanding this comment. Which part of this post made you think that your decision was great? The fact that you started a software firm? the fact that no one has an office at your firm?

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#38

Post by redthrowaway »

dikbrouwer wrote: post #13

I'm a bit confused by this post. The author seems to celebrate a private office. I strongly prefer open work spaces that you share with others, as do many companies I've worked with/seen. Care to share your opinion? I'm curious...

Ideally, I'd like both: an open space to collaborate in, and a quiet place tucked away from interruptions and distractions to code in.

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#39

Post by whiletruefork »

plinkplonk wrote: post #17

I asked this in the comments section but it disappeared into thin air with no notification on what was happening(say, held for moderation etc).So I'll ask it here. Maybe an HN reader who works for MS might know the answer. From the article, "All managers have laptops. Most prety good ones." Do developers (testers etc) have laptops (pretty good ones)? Or are they "management only" perks? (fwiw all the bodyshopping com…

Depends on the team. I worked at a few different ones at MSFT, and generally the position was - two machines. Two desktops? Ok. Desktop + Laptop? Ok.

Most developers went for the desktop x2 plan. PM's almost always went desktop + laptop.

Again, this was for NEW machines. I had, at my peak, 6. 4 desktops and 2 laptops. Most of these were random old peices of hardware that were fit for recycling (but still fully functional!) that I used for whatever side projects I needed the hardware for.

Everyone always complains about their PC hardware - but not once did I see someone who actually needed a piece of hardware go without it. Monitor upgrades, for some reason, were much rarer and didn't make sense at all.

Re: Working at Microsoft – Day to Day Coding

#40

Post by dmnd »

checoivan wrote: post #18
plinkplonk wrote: post #17

I asked this in the comments section but it disappeared into thin air with no notification on what was happening(say, held for moderation etc).So I'll ask it here. Maybe an HN reader who works for MS might know the answer. From the article, "All managers have laptops. Most prety good ones." Do developers (testers etc) have laptops (pretty good ones)? Or are they "management only" perks? (fwiw all the bodyshopping com…

Laptops are officially only for managers and Program managers. As a dev/test you can get a loaner for a presentation or find one, somehow.

It's very team dependent. Every dev in Bing has their own laptop. Of course most of us don't have our own office, it's more common to be doubled up.
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