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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

#241

Post by pm »

JonFish85 wrote: post #101
ownagefool wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a ton of wrong with that statements tone, not that I think the author meant it that way, but I'll point it out regardless: #1 - The majority of HN seems to involve typical latests web crud app fads. It's probably also not that interesting to *nix system developers either, though many might read it for the apps being created as opposed to the how. #2 - Having MongoDB on your CV generally means you're developin…

Microsoft is the complete opposite of Facebook's "Move fast and break things". And that's a good thing, in a lot of ways. When entire companies (industries?) are dependent on you: slow & steady to get it right is much, much better than moving quickly to integrate the newest technology.

Sure, it's "move slow and break things". As judged by my experiences with most Microsoft products over the last twenty years, and reinforced by my current experience with Windows Azure's bizarre engineering choices and instability issues (the team to which the OP was assigned).

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

#242

Post by aswath87 »

I joined MS straight out of college as a SDET too and I agree with most of what this. This is a broad statement, but SDET is generally not the best bet if your goal is to be technical or entrepreneurial. My big regret is that I stuck around for 3 years before deciding to move. My advice - change your role/team/company soon. Realistically, nothing is going to change overnight in your current role or team - the culture has been established over several years. It is important to work on what you are passionate about and in a culture that fits you, especially when you are young and when career is a big part of your life.

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

#243

Post by aswath87 »

alpb wrote: post #166
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…

Hey there, author of the post here. I thought I may justify what I said. I have friends in almost all big companies and I discuss them about these issues a lot. Almost all of them agree that they are in a similar situation. I know that even Microsoft is a huge world and NOT all organizations are the same. All organizations have their own culture so there's no common culture in the company I can describe. In a way thi…

I joined MS straight out of college as a SDET too and I agree with most of this. This is a broad statement, but SDET is generally not the best bet if your goal is to be technical or entrepreneurial. My big regret is that I stuck around for 3 years before deciding to move. My advice - change your role/team/company soon. Realistically, nothing is going to change overnight in your current role or team - the culture has been established over several years. It is important to work on what you are passionate about and in a culture that fits you, especially when you are young and when career is a big part of your life.

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

#244

Post by alttab »

Draiken wrote: post #146
bunkat wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

which is why blogging this is dangerous for him. First off, it his team reads it what will they think? He is inadvertally calling out problems with his management team and got a lot of exposure.

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

#245

Post by nostrademons »

sidww2 wrote: post #223
nostrademons wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's still an opportunity cost to writing documentation. How many other people will work on that code? 2-3? 12? 100? 2000? If it's 2-3 or even a dozen, you're better off explaining in person how it works, while if it's 2000 there better be some persistent written documentation. It probably also doesn't help that the number of people who look at a given piece of code follows a power law, which means that when you'r…

If the product you're working on is a long term project of the company, it's likely you'll leave before it's over in which case there will be a future person who'll have to figure out your code. In such a case, documentation is essential as otherwise this person would have to contact you after you've moved onto other projects and may have forgotten the intimate details of the code making things tricky.

That's why you have at least two people work on every part of the code, ideally together, but you could easily arrange a hand-off. Solo-developer projects are bad ideas for other reasons, notably that if you get hit by a truck the company is SOL.

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

#246

Post by adamconroy »

bodegajed wrote: post #221
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 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 world from such limited experience. I like him already, If were Microsoft I _will_ hire him asap. He's the type of person who wants to make things better.

Yeh, he is still young enough to change the world.

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

#247

Post by outside1234 »

alttab wrote: post #244
Draiken wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

which is why blogging this is dangerous for him. First off, it his team reads it what will they think? He is inadvertally calling out problems with his management team and got a lot of exposure.

honestly, i'd love to have this guy in my team at Microsoft. its good to have a reflective nature on what's not working.

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

#248

Post by Paul_D_Santana »

enjo wrote: post #94
kayoone wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally love what im doing, but forgive me, i love my family more.

I love my family, my health, and life more. Work, while important to me, isn't even near the top of my priority list. I work so that I can do the things and be around the people I truly care about. My only real life regret is that I didn't realize it a bit sooner.

Wow, incredibly profound. THANK YOU. Upvoted.

It is an extremely difficult thing to accept that one should not think of one's identity and aim in life by their employment, isn't it?

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

#249

Post by jarek »

Paul_D_Santana wrote: post #248
enjo wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love my family, my health, and life more. Work, while important to me, isn't even near the top of my priority list. I work so that I can do the things and be around the people I truly care about. My only real life regret is that I didn't realize it a bit sooner.

Wow, incredibly profound. THANK YOU. Upvoted. It is an extremely difficult thing to accept that one should not think of one's identity and aim in life by their employment, isn't it?

> It is an extremely difficult thing to accept that one should not think of one's identity and aim in life by their employment, isn't it?

It really isn't. Why would you even begin to think in that in the first place?

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

#250

Post by windexh8er »

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…

The thing is, he's (mostly) right. I've consulted/worked for over a dozen of the F100 and have run across varying degrees of everything described (some better, some worse) over 10 years.

This isnt to say you can't make change. You just have to play work as a very strategic game of chess and, often, take risks most others won't/don't. I've done it and that is one of the only reasons I still play the game. I'm genuinely interested in making things better and pushing out the cruft.

The downside is that it wears on you. I generally get burnt out or bored after a couple years and look for something new to reset and challenge myself on. And as bad as this reads for Microsoft (really - were you surprised?) I don't think there's any other factual data to support Azure being a market leading product and these sort of indicators only solidify that position (garbage in/garbage out).

These types of perspectives are good for those who are considering the reality of working for these size organizations. Not because it's a guarantee that things will surely mirror what's been outlined, however it lends candidates a tool to ask questions which would be indicators of the reality of the work environment.

Kudos to the author.

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