In 8 months at Microsoft, I learned these things • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by marssaxman » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 8:57 PM UTC

robododo wrote: post #55

papercruncher wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 encou…

I got that encouragement too, after I realized I was never going to be happy at devdiv, but I still don't understand how it was ever supposed to work. It's not like you get special visibility into the working conditions you would encounter in some other group just because your badge will get you into their building. I just said "fuck it" and quit, and I've never regretted that decision.

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

#142

Post by Draiken » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 8:57 PM UTC

cobrausn wrote: post #116

infinitone wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Microsoft slow and steady when he just told you they have poor code quality, no docs, etc.

Where did he mention poor code quality? Out of date documentation is all I see mentioned.

I'd say that's implicit, if code that doesn't deliver business value (refactoring, documenting, etc.) is wasted, people won't do it.

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

#143

Post by freeman478 » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 8:58 PM UTC

JonFish85 wrote: post #125

scotty79 wrote: post #123

> I have seen the knowledge inside the company is mostly transferred by talking and hands-on sessions. Yes. Exactly. IMHO this is the factor that's responsible for at least 50% of corporate clumsiness. > If this would have been my own company there would be tons of wiki pages. Just having wikis won't help much. I worked at a company that had wiki, people were putting things there as an afterthought. I was total and c…

Wikis for documentation: great in theory, sucks in practice. Make a change to source, then you have to figure out where the wiki page is for it. Can't find the wiki page? Make a new one. What folder does it go in? Do you make a new folder? What if a page does exist, but it's wrong? Do you fix the whole thing? Just the part you added? Email the person who last updated it? After 6 months it ends up being a tangled mess…

Do you have any recommendation for documentation then ?

In my experience wikis are far from perfect and need regular gardening BUT they are vastly better than a shared folder or a sharepoint with a ton of word documents...

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

#144

Post by sliverstorm » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 8:59 PM UTC

ngoel36 wrote: post #32

venomsnake wrote: post #19

Publishing something that HR/PR can consider slander under your real name while being junior developer is not a recipe for stable employment. These guys tend to freak out over minor stuff like that. Lets hope it does not have negative consequences. Otherwise familiar - these companies are like supertankers - move slowly and few people are empowered to make meaningful decisions and contributions. Worked for a few year…

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…

This is how MOST computer science majors spend their careers.

And I'm thankful they do. Most of the very large projects that act on an extremely large scale require that sort of day-to-day grind. The spark is important too, but great things are 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.

Just look at the code studies. Open-source projects of great accomplishment like the Linux kernel have just as many hours (those hours are just distributed a bit more)

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

#145

Post by VLM » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 8:59 PM UTC

"Everybody loves finding Stack Overflow answers on search results, but nobody contributes those answers."

Nobody OFFICIALLY does that. Probably because subsection 89 paragraph 12 clause 9 specifically prohibits that kind of activity on company time, and the company owns everything you produce or think of outside work blah blah blah, only company officers may speak for the company and you're not an officer, and you are never off duty and always working for the company who owns everything you may ever say, therefore you may never communicate with another human being in any manner... officially... in theory...

In practice psuedonymity is the rule. No one he's met in 8 months has seen fit to give a kid leverage over him for no apparent reason.

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

#146

Post by Draiken » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 9:01 PM UTC

bunkat wrote: post #58

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.

I think on a large corporation like Microsoft, both your cases can happen at the same time. The OP wouldn't blatantly lie and I assume you are not lying too...

This huge disparity between teams are normally a sign of very big management issues.

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

#147

Post by kristianc » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 9:04 PM UTC

rmah wrote: post #119

I'm not sure where to start. This is a person at his first job out of college and he's been there for less than a year (two if we're being generous). And yet he has the audacity to say "I learned that one will see this sort of problems in all large scale companies."? Really? This is absurd. I can't wrap my head around the sort of arrogance and myopia that makes a 21 or 22 yr old think that he can describe an entire w…

>This is a person at his first job out of college and he's been there for less than a year. And yet he has the audacity to say "I learned that one will see this sort of problems in all large scale companies."? Really? This is absurd.

Fwiw, I read it as a way of (plausibly) covering his ass if he was ever hauled in front of management about the post, not a way of overstating his experience. YMMV.

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

#148

Post by benched » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 9:05 PM UTC

rmah wrote: post #119

I'm not sure where to start. This is a person at his first job out of college and he's been there for less than a year (two if we're being generous). And yet he has the audacity to say "I learned that one will see this sort of problems in all large scale companies."? Really? This is absurd. I can't wrap my head around the sort of arrogance and myopia that makes a 21 or 22 yr old think that he can describe an entire w…

I was at Microsoft for 5 years, in a completely different group from the OP. My experience matched his exactly, in character and specifics.

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

#149

Post by nostrademons » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 9:08 PM UTC

smackfu wrote: post #59

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.

The real world is an awfully broad place. There are plenty of places you can go where mediocrity is not encouraged, people do more than 2-3 hours of real work a day, they're passionate about their work and curious about outside developments, and your specialties do matter. If you want to work there and find that you're not able to do that in your current job, change your job.

You tend to get the life you believe you deserve - if you're willing to put in the leg work to make it happen, you can very easily reconfigure the world around you to something you're satisfied with.

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

#150

Post by potatolicious » Wed, Jun 12, 2013, 9:11 PM UTC

sinkasapa wrote: post #70

jgh wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree if you're working in some drone farm. Without a personal stake, why do people feel enthusiastic about following orders that keep them locked up at work all day? I understand that there may be coercion, like the threat of being fired, but if you're just writing software for your company, where does the enthusiasm for long hours come in? I'm freelance, and I love working on my projects. I often work long hours.…

There is more to life than your profession.

Or, more generally, there is more to life than one single thing. Some people let a single thing (or a very, very small number of things) define themselves, and it's a bad idea.

Think critically - how are you defined? If you asked the 5 people closest to you, how would they describe you? If they can't get much further than "good software guy", be careful.

Life is way too short to be one-dimensional.