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In 8 months at Microsoft, I learned these things

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Re: In 8 months at Microsoft, I learned these things

#51

Post by groby_b »

I can't comment on MS, but I can certainly tell you that not all large companies work that way.

Some points just don't apply - I happen to be lucky enough that I do work with passionate engineers, manage to get about 5 hours of coding done, and actually look at reasonably decent documentation.

And some things are as they should be. Your "specialty" rarely matters that early in your career. Most of the things mentioned (create iOS app, know MongoDB, etc.) are things that I'd expect a good developer to pick up as needed. Working as a software engineer is about being able to think logically, not mastering a particular subset of skills.

And yes, latest software is frowned upon. You'll know why once you've been on a project that went completely off the rails right before finish just because somebody needed to upgrade the compiler. Those are things you plan for. You test the new software extensively, and see when you can best absorb the inevitable cost of switching.

Re: In 8 months at Microsoft, I learned these things

#52

Post by nealabq »

jmduke wrote: post #36
ngoel36 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent two summers interning as a Program Manager at Microsoft (Xbox and Office), and his statements are nearly 100% accurate: - Literally any piece of documentation was always 1+ years out of date. Setting up a dev environment could take days when it should have only taken hours. - A lot of my coworkers were over 35. Starkly different from my experience later at Google. Working past 6 was considered absurd, and a l…

Although things were done differently than they are done in Silicon Valley, the difference is not necessarily bad, perhaps more eye-opening. This is how MOST computer science majors spend their careers. Not mastering MongoDB, collaborating on Google Spreadsheets, or posting things to HN, but using Windows XP, Visual Studio, and Microsoft Word 2003 on a 2008 Lenovo laptop. And MS is perfectly happy taking their money.…

It's curiosity that's important, not new stuff. We read HN because we're curious, and we don't want to miss anything. We don't get stuck on old inferior tools (at least not at home) because we like to tinker and explore. You can judge people, to some extent, based on their reading, their tools, how informed they are about the competition. Programming is like surfing a tidal wave of information and change; you don't improve by sticking your head in the sand.

(Yeah, that last sentence is a tidal wave of mixed metaphore tossed like a salad.)

Re: In 8 months at Microsoft, I learned these things

#53

Post by kryten »

jgh wrote: post #50
ngoel36 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent two summers interning as a Program Manager at Microsoft (Xbox and Office), and his statements are nearly 100% accurate: - Literally any piece of documentation was always 1+ years out of date. Setting up a dev environment could take days when it should have only taken hours. - A lot of my coworkers were over 35. Starkly different from my experience later at Google. Working past 6 was considered absurd, and a l…

Working past 6 should be considered absurd unless you start at 10 or 11.. There's a world out there for you to enjoy, and many people fought hard for workers rights so we don't have kill ourselves over work.

This. Joy to the European work ethic. I haven't worked past 5 for the last 10 years. I refuse to do unpaid work and overtime. Would your employer bill you out for free? Nope.

Re: In 8 months at Microsoft, I learned these things

#54

Post by matthiasb »

"Expect no documentation in corporations" TechNet has so many valuable articles! It helps me every day to figure out the issues I have without having to hire an expert;-)

And I love the Microsoft Test Lab Guides (http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/1...) which is continuously updated.

Re: In 8 months at Microsoft, I learned these things

#55

Post by robododo »

papercruncher wrote: post #42
snth wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long ago? Do you think it was different when you were there, that it was better in your group specifically, or that it's better in most other groups?

I was in Online Services (aka Windows Live) about two years ago. Some groups are obviously better than others, that can be said for any company. I think the problem here is that the author does not realize that unlike college, corporate world requires you to be a bit more proactive. Large companies may suffer from bureaucracy but on the upside, they have vast resources and smart/accomplished people you can tap into i…

I'm actually in the windows services group now (no longer called Live). I can confirm that the author's experience is quite different from mine. Papercruncher's assessment is pretty much spot on.

Given there are 10k's of employees here in Redmond, it's not surprising that different groups are, well, different. I've noticed that rather large subcultures emerge in different areas. Once you're in the door, there's encouragement to move and find your "fit". All this blog post taught me is that I probably wouldn't be a good fit for Azure :)

Re: In 8 months at Microsoft, I learned these things

#56

Post by nealabq »

jgh wrote: post #50
ngoel36 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent two summers interning as a Program Manager at Microsoft (Xbox and Office), and his statements are nearly 100% accurate: - Literally any piece of documentation was always 1+ years out of date. Setting up a dev environment could take days when it should have only taken hours. - A lot of my coworkers were over 35. Starkly different from my experience later at Google. Working past 6 was considered absurd, and a l…

Working past 6 should be considered absurd unless you start at 10 or 11.. There's a world out there for you to enjoy, and many people fought hard for workers rights so we don't have kill ourselves over work.

Not if you love what you're doing.

Re: In 8 months at Microsoft, I learned these things

#57

Post by marssaxman »

fragmede wrote: post #10
philliphaydon wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that statement hard to believe. The Azure Insiders mailing list has multiple threads mentioning other competitors such as Heroku and Rackspace.

I don't. Microsoft has such a high level of not invented here (NIH) syndrome sometimes that I'd find it easier to believe that engineers on the ground are simply unaware of the competition.

That was certainly my experience in devdiv. People barely seemed to realize that a world outside the Microsoft ecosystem still existed. I have forgotten the details, but there was a meeting once where I suggested we look at some open source project for ideas about solving the problem we were working on... possibly LLVM?... in any case the response was completely blank, like, what possible relevance could that have, why are you wasting your time thinking about some weird open source thing in the first place? It was a really strange attitude to encounter, as someone who had never even used Microsoft tools before going to work there.

Re: In 8 months at Microsoft, I learned these things

#58

Post by bunkat »

papercruncher wrote: post #27

I spent 5 years at Microsoft as a dev and share almost none of the author's sentiments. I had very few meetings, my manager went out of his way to make sure that I was not blocked, code reviews were mandatory, blogging on technical aspects was ok, had ample free time to work on any side project I wanted (even encouraged to work with MSR on things that were more researchy), etc etc... I could go on for a while. Sure,…

I worked at Microsoft as well (and even on the Azure team as little as 2 years ago) and I agree, none of this sounds like any of the teams that I worked on. I'm guessing it has more to do with his perception as a junior dev suddenly working on a large team than with reality.

Re: In 8 months at Microsoft, I learned these things

#59

Post by smackfu »

vowelless wrote: post #6

He sounds like someone who is significantly lowering his standards. Seems like working at a big corporation is killing his spirit and energy. That is just sad. Edit: Unless he is being sarcastic?

His standards weren't based on the real world though.

Re: In 8 months at Microsoft, I learned these things

#60

Post by marssaxman »

thehme wrote: post #44

Good luck. I hope this was not a mistake to publish, but it is definitely true of ALL jobs, not just developers or tech in general. I have noticed that it usually has to do with people being greedy of their knowledge and wanting to be indispensable. However, many of us have a choice to contribute to this and other places where we can share info as you said in your post, so thanks.

It is fortunately not true of all software jobs; if it were, I would have changed careers a very long time ago. Perhaps I have been lucky, but my experiences in small companies have generally been much, much better than what the author describes.
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