Recently, my face showed up on a poster tacked up all around Microsoft’s Redmond campus for Breast Cancer Month.  My coworkers expressed surprise that real employees are being used for marketing and promotional materials. The same day the poster started popping up, I was introduced to another very real view of Microsoft — viewmyworld.com.

Get ready to spend some time digging into View<myWorld>. There's a lot there, including video content, employee profiles, and feeds from a few of the latest Microsoft employee blogs. This is a great place to visit if you want to get to know Microsofties on a more real, personal level. There are candid interviews from real employees explaining why they have chosen to work here.  These are real conversations with Microsoft technical employees.

I have been spending the last few days reading, watching, laughing and enjoying. Hear our stories and View<myWorld> for yourself: http://www.viewmyworld.com/

-Angela

By: Ginny Cheng

I received several inquiries from folks that wanted to learn more about the Microsoft Mac Business Unit (MacBU) -- which is growing in both the Redmond, WA and our Mountain View, CA office. 

Mick Foley is one of the Development Leads in the CA office and was kind enough to answer some of the most common questions they get about this group. 

For example, a lot of people ask, “Microsoft has a Mac business group?”

Mick:  Depending on when and how you measure it, Microsoft is either the largest or second largest third party vendors for Mac platform (vs. Adobe). People are often surprised that Microsoft has a Mac Business Unit. Ironically, most Mac people are very aware of Microsoft on the Mac: Office is one of the best selling and therefore most common software packages for the Macintosh.

However, many Microsoft employees are completely unaware that we develop and sell software for the Mac. BTW, in addition to Office, we also develop the Mac Messenger IM client and we are currently working on a new version of RDC for Mac – these are both free products that we develop for to meet a need that we see in the Mac market.

What products do you work on within the MacBu?
I am a developer lead on Entourage. Entourage is the Email/Calendar/Contacts/Exchange client that is shipped as part of Mac Office (along with Word, Excel and PowerPoint). While we are not a part of Outlook, we cover many of the same areas and occupy the same “spot” in the suite. The developer lead role involves both coding and management – I spend about 1/2 of my time in each role.

Do you have to have experience with Mac to excel in this group?
Absolutely not! Of the five people who report to me, only one had significant Mac experience before coming to the MacBU. The MacOS continues to change quite rapidly – in the last 6 years Apple has moved to an entirely rewritten OS (Mac OS X), revised 6 times (10.0 to 10.5) and changed processors (PowerPC to Intel) – even people with years of Mac experience are learning new things all the time. We’re looking for people who can learn quickly, solve hard problems, and work well in cross functional (dev, test, product management) teams. Much of our code is written in C++ so experience there helps, but like Mac specific experience we’re more interested in more general problem solving.

Can you tell me about the growth in this group?  Is it like a start-up?
We are definitely in a hiring phase right now. We are about to ship Office 2008 and we are starting to plan for the next version. As we look at the work we want to do and the time that we have to do it, it is clear that we need to expand. In terms of culture, I think that we have a mix of smaller company focus – being on the Mac makes us somewhat different – but large company resources. We are very much a team culture – working at the MacBU is very much about working with others: both with those who share your role and across disciplines.

Do you guys focus on different features in Redmond vs. Mountain View?
The Mac Office suite consists of four products: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage. Word and Excel (and Messenger!) are developed in Redmond and PowerPoint and Entourage are developed in Silicon Valley. There is a fair amount of shared code that is developed by teams in both locations. In general, we see ourselves as one group, split over two locations – not two groups that happen to ship together.

What’s your vision of the MacBu 5 years from now?
We will certainly still be developing and shipping Mac Office – it’s an important and profitable business for Microsoft. However, I think that the nature and scope of the Office suite will continue to evolve and grow. Personally, I expect that we will be looking at more and more collaborative scenarios to enable teams to work together. I also think that we may be developing and shipping other products that complement the Mac Office scenarios. In terms of the code, I see us continuing to integrate newer Apple and Microsoft technologies to both improve existing functionality and to enable new features to solve new problems.

Do you have any tips for people that end up interviewing for this team?

1. Get a good night’s sleep – come in fresh and ready to think.
   
2. Be prepared for technical problems – we do ask them. However, looking on the Internet for questions and answers won’t help – we avoid asking the ones that are up there, especially the abstract logic questions. Rather, be prepared to discuss and code problems on a whiteboard relating to real code and problems that we have seen in our code.
   
3. If you’re a college student, think about what you are interested in learning from us about where/how/why we work at Microsoft. What position you take after school is a key decision in your life – it will affect where you live, who you are spending time with and what you are doing for many of your waking hours. Make sure that you get the info you need to make the right decision for you.

Lastly, tell us about yourself. How did you end up with Microsoft? 
I’ve been at Microsoft for almost 5 years – I joined when Microsoft acquired a Virtual PC from Connectix (small (~120 people) company). Virtual PC was a virtualization package that enabled Mac users to run Windows software on their Macs. I moved into the dev lead role on Entourage about 2 years ago. In all honesty, I had never really considered coming to Microsoft – I’ve been programming the Mac for many years, so Microsoft was not exactly on my radar. I have to say that I was initially very surprised by the passion for software and customers that I see here at Microsoft. This passion and Microsoft’s dedication to its employees makes it truly one of the great places to work today.

Prior to Microsoft and Connectix, I worked in the game/educational software industry. In my 10 years, I worked for Maixs (now part of Electronic Arts) including work on SimCity and SimCity 2000, Presage (a small game studio) and Lucas Learning (educational software in the Star Wars world...). While working in the game space was often quite fun – the artists and sound people are great – the nature of the gaming business keeps budgets low and schedules insane. Leaving games in 2000 to go to Connectix, I found that the projects are just as interesting, the pay is better and the schedules allow a life outside of work. I think that the most surprising thing for me when I got into non-game software is that features that get cut can return in a future version. For the most part games, even sequels, are complete rewrites so if a feature is cut, it is gone for good.

Thanks, Mick! That was very interesting.

To check out available positions with the MacBU, go to Microsoft.com/careers site. If you’re a college student, contact your school recruiter instead.

 - Ginny

By: Ginny Cheng 

So Many Choices!  What’s the right MS group for me to start out with?

Often, when I ask a college student what Microsoft products/teams they would be interested in exploring, I get the typical responses like Xbox, Zune, Windows, IE and Search.    While I’m sure many students are indeed interested in those groups, I believe the majority realize that they don’t know all the products and technologies Microsoft has to offer.  After all, it is a big playground here and there are hundreds of products that we work on every day.

I have a tip -- instead of focusing on a product, which limits you to other possibilities, pay attention to your technology preference.   For example, you may be interested in Graphics but if you’re not into Graphics in Games, did you know we also have Graphics in Office?  In other words, know what Microsoft technologies interest you most and match your skills and qualifications to them.

Coming soon to your campus, you may be asked to fill out a Candidate Interest Form before you interview that includes most of the technologies used at Microsoft.  You’ll be able to check as many boxes as you like but again, select those that also match your current skill sets.

I’m going to give you a heads up on what those areas are so you can begin to think about what technologies would make you want to come to work every day!   This advice is also applicable for industry candidates.

• Applications
• Communication Systems
• Compilers
• Databases
• Distributed Systems
• Drivers
• Emerging Technologies
• Graphics
• Hardware
• Media Technologies
• Mobility and Wireless
• Natural Language Processing
• Networking
• Operating Systems
• Performance
• Search and Text Mining
• Security and Cryptography
• Servers
• Storage
• Theory
• User Interface
• Web Applications
• Other (yeah, we included this one in case you have something even more specific)

Happy Exploring!

- Ginny

By: Ginny Cheng

In my last post, I encouraged students that may be hesitant in making Redmond a long-term investment to consider the possibilities of checking out opportunities with Microsoft in other locations (domestic & international) after they’ve been at HQ for a few years.  Then again, many employees end up falling in love with the Emerald City and making it their permanent home, so you never know.

To give a real life example that there are indeed opportunities for employees to explore outside of HQ, I approached my friend, Zeeshan – a former college hire (2002) and a 3x intern from University of Waterloo - for his take on his adventures that led him to Washington, DC.   He also gives some good advice for new hires already at Microsoft! 

Q:  How did you know Microsoft was the right choice for you straight out of college?

A:  I did an internship with Microsoft and loved the diversity of people and technology Microsoft provided.  I was hooked.  I did two more internships and had no doubt I wanted to work for Microsoft fulltime.  To give you an idea of what I mean by diversity of technologies and options, my first internship was as an SDET in Office.  For my next internship, I decided I wanted to do something closer to the end user.  So, I went to mobile devices as an SDET.  I really enjoyed being an SDET, but I really wanted to be an SDE.  So I came back as an SDE for my final internship.  There aren’t very many companies that provide this sort of flexibility.

I started my full-time career at Microsoft as an SDE in mobile devices.  My first team was Office Mobile where I worked on a number of technologies, including the richink control, Excel mobile, Powerpoint mobile and Word mobile.  After that, I transitioned to Outlook Mobile as a Messaging dev lead, where my team owned secure messaging, rights management, out of office assistant, and exchange search. 

After five years in mobile, I wanted to do something different.  Again, this goes to show why I picked Microsoft.  This desire for a change brought me to the Healthcare Solutions team, where I am currently a developer.

Q:  I’ll bet many people do not realize that Microsoft is in the Heathcare Solutions business.   What does your team do?  And, why did you take on this challenge?

A:  My current team is a company Microsoft acquired last year.  We develop an enterprise health platform that aggregates data from all sources in an enterprise (in our case hospitals) for a unified view.  After half a decade with mobile devices, I wanted to do something different.  I had several offers from different teams in Microsoft.  At the end, I liked the fact that Azyxxi was an acquired startup.  I wanted to gain startup experience, as well as help integrate an acquired company.  The team actually has a presence in Bellevue as well, so I didn’t have to move to DC.  It was actually the GM in my previous team who helped me see that DC was a better option.  I am glad she did.

Q:   Students often wonder if there are other development opportunities outside of Redmond, can you tell us what resource you used to do your search?  Did you think it was also about timing?

A:    I used our internal careers website that Microsofties use to find other jobs.  I found several teams outside Microsoft.  There were several positions in California, as well as, a few in Boston.   I was not looking specifically outside Redmond, if I had, then I would have found even more.  I also know several people who work remotely from places other than Redmond.  I don’t think it had anything to do with timing.  The teams I mentioned are all growing and are constantly hiring people. 

Q:  What are the advantages of working in Redmond first? 

A:   Although not necessarily a “must”,  it is true that the experience you gain in Redmond is different from experience outside of Redmond.  But it is also true for different teams in Redmond.  Zune’s culture is very different from that of Office, which itself is different from Mobile. 

You do have more networking opportunities in Redmond. I routinely met people from many different teams, something that’s harder to do now.  However, outside of Redmond, you do interact with different teams in Redmond and do make new contacts.  You just have to stay in touch with them differently (we use Communicator a lot). 

Another disadvantage of starting away from Redmond, is that you won’t get to see other cultures.  Although I worked in mobile devices, I spent enough time with people from other teams (Office, Exchange, Xbox etc) that I also got to understand their cultures.  However, it isn’t that big a disadvantage.

Q:  How did your manager support you in the process of this new position?  How did you find out about this position?

A:   My previous management was bummed that I wanted to leave, but they totally supported my decision.  In fact, I actually brainstormed my options with my previous management, and they helped me pick one.  It was actually my previous GM who nudged me into accepting the DC position, instead of the one in Redmond. 

I heard of this specific team through a friend, but opened jobs are also posted in Microsoft Careers website. 

Q:  Any advice you’d give to future students interviewing with Microsoft?

A:   I have interviewed a lot of college candidates.  A common problem sometimes is that people try to impress their interviewers a little too much.  I went through interviews myself when I was switching teams and can tell you from experience to just be yourself.  Many times there are no right (or wrong) answers to what interviewers are asking.  Just be honest.  

Best interviews are ones where you have candid discussions with the interviewer, giving the interviewer an insight into the candidate.  Worst interviews, therefore, are ones where the interviewer comes out of the interview without really knowing the candidate. Those situations are easy "no-hires".  How can you hire someone you couldn’t really evaluate?  I think this happens when candidates aren’t themselves during the interview. 

In addition, please do prepare. I have seen candidates apply to jobs that specifically ask for a certain skill, and candidates pleading ignorance during interviews.  That doesn’t work.  If you’re applying for a technical role then brush up on technical skills.  Learn a bit about the team, if possible.  Try to understand yourself.  For instance, if asked for a weakness then you should really know what it is. It isn’t impressive to see a candidate spend 5 minutes trying to come up with a personal weakness.  Show your passion (we are all passionate about something).  I found it helpful to interview myself.  I asked myself all sort of questions and I made sure I knew the answers to those questions. 

This doesn’t contradict the honest discussion part I mentioned above.  For instance, an interviewer asked me if I had ideas on Google compete.  I actually did, because I had thought about it.  I was also asked about my business interests, had discussions on management styles, and even personal weaknesses.   I was honest in responding to all of them, but I had done my homework to make sure I did not waste valuable time thinking about my management style. 

A specific advice for technical interviews (a few hints rather).  We don’t really care if you come up with the best algorithm ever written to solve a given problem.  We are more interested in understanding your thought process.  I have seen people shoot themselves by trying to over-optimize after a perfectly good start.  A less optimal solution is better than no solution. 

 Also, do try to understand the problem.  It doesn’t help if the interviewer asked for the integer with most occurrences and your solution returns the number of occurrences instead. 

Finally, test and verify all solutions, even if they are just high-level designs.  It isn’t enough to solve a problem, you also have to prove that your solution is a correct one, and that’s where testing comes in. 

Q:  Any advice you’d give to new hires already at Microsoft?

A:   I actually have three main suggestions:

First, in many ways Microsoft is like college, except you make a ton of money while learning.  I am sure there are other companies out there that provide as many learning opportunities, but I am certain there are very few and far between.  Microsoft has great training resources and mentor programs, and people here really enjoy coaching.   My first advice would be to take full advantage of this. 

Secondly, Microsoft also puts a great deal of emphasis on people’s careers.  However, most people don’t actively think about their own careers, and that is a mistake.  Managing a career is different from just doing a job.  Managing a career means your job should be aligned to your career goals.  Your commitments and achievements should take you closer to your goals.  If what you find yourself doing isn’t doing that, then speak up.  You’ll find that most Microsoft managers are very willing to fix things.  In my experience, a lot of the time, job dissatisfaction comes from lack of communication, rather than lack of willingness of managers to create a better working environment. 

Other than that, just have fun.  Microsoft has a good work hard play harder environment.  We get a lot of discounts for local activities (in Northwest and elsewhere), and I always took advantage of those. 

Q:  Any other interesting thing you'd like to share with us? How do you like DC?  Do you picture yourself going back to Redmond again? 

A:   DC is cool.  A lot of things here are free.  I’ve been hitting museums, the zoo and even some shows, and they’re all free!  It is super hot though (Redmond doesn’t get that hot). It’s 99 today.  However, I do see sun every day, which is nice.  The good metro system is also very nice to have.  It is also a much more culturally and racially diverse area, which makes it exciting for a person like me who enjoys interacting with people from different cultures and backgrounds. 

As for the future, I just got here.  I think I can achieve the next few milestones in my career easily on this team in DC. After doing that, if I find myself looking for a change and if my current team is unable to provide the change, then I’ll look around.  If what appeals to me happens to be in Redmond, then I’ll be in Redmond again .  I do miss Seattle, it’s a really cool city as well.  I am already planning a personal December visit to Seattle.

*******************************************************
*Note to self…don’t forget to bring Ginny a nice gift from DC when visiting Seattle in December.
(OK, I, as in Ginny, wrote that..ha ha) 

- Ginny

The following article comes from the New York Times and references some of the managers I am now supporting (Eric Danas and Mary LaLomia).  The article talks to some history, the need and justification of user experience.  Enjoy!

FRESH STARTS
Technology’s Untanglers: They Make It Really Work

By BARBARA WHITAKER
Published: July 8, 2007

SOMETIMES there is a huge disconnect between the people who make a product and the people who use it. The creator of a Web site may assume too much knowledge on the part of users, leading to confusion. Software designers may not anticipate user behavior that can unintentionally destroy an entire database. Manufacturers can make equipment that inadvertently increases the likelihood of repetitive stress injuries.

Enter the usability professional, whose work has recently developed into a solid career track, driven mostly by advancements in technology. Jobs in the usability industry are varied, as are the backgrounds of the people who hold them. The work can involve testing products in a laboratory, watching people use products in the field or developing testing methods.

When the federal government was creating its informational Web site (now known as usa.gov), it brought in usability experts to look for flaws. By watching users, the site’s creators found that people were having trouble finding an individual agency’s Web site because they did not know which department to look under. “Even people in the Washington, D.C., area didn’t know that,” said Janice Redish, a usability consultant who worked on the project in February 2002. “It was an easy fix once we knew it.”

Dr. Redish, whose background is in linguistics, is a usability consultant specializing in Web sites and software interfaces. In 1979, she founded the Document Design Center for the American Institutes for Research to examine how the government could make its documents more understandable. By 1985, she had established an independent usability laboratory and was testing software interfaces and documentation for companies like I.B.M. and Sony.
“It’s really a field that has taken off in the last three, four, five years,” Dr. Redish said. “I think the Web has really made companies and agencies understand they are in a conversation with their customers.”

In some cases, usability research has become very sophisticated, relying on equipment like eye-tracking software to analyze precisely what users are looking at on a computer screen. But in most cases, Dr. Redish said, the work relies on solid observation and interview skills.
Eric Danas, a geophysicist who worked for years in the oil exploration industry, became involved in usability after seeing how information could be tailored to different audiences. He went back to school and received a graduate degree in human factors (the study of how people interact with technology and other things) and advanced interface design.

In 1995, Mr. Danas became a usability expert specializing in software design. Today, he works for Microsoft, leading a “user experience team” that examines how to make software more accessible.

“The users of our products don’t really care about the technology,” Mr. Danas said. “They just have a job they’re trying to do. We bridge the gap between what technology is capable of doing and what users want to achieve.”

Many usability jobs are related to computers and the Web. But usability professionals are also in demand in fields like medicine.

Mary LaLomia, who has a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology, is a product manager who specializes in usability at Philips Medical Systems in Bothell, Wash. As part of the job, she recently surveyed 20 sites where the company’s ultrasound system was being used. She helped examine everything from the design of the equipment to avoiding repetitive stress injury to how patient information flows through the system.

In response to a growing demand for usability jobs, schools are offering degrees in areas like human computer interaction, new media and accessible Web design. But much of the training for usability jobs is happening in the workplace.

“People come into it from many different areas,” Dr. Redish said. “Anthropology, for example, is a great background for the field service aspect, going out to a customer’s workplace or a person’s home.” She said that linguistics is relevant “because it’s all about how people communicate.”

The Usability Professionals’ Association offers tutorials and holds an annual meeting. The Society for Technical Communication also has a group on usability and user experience.

General online job boards are a good resource for usability jobs. In addition, the usability association lists job postings on its Web site, and job placement firms like Bestica Inc. specialize in usability design jobs.

Harvinder Singh, president of Bestica, which is based in San Antonio, says that there is a shortage of people to fill usability jobs.

“We’re working with companies like Microsoft and Yahoo and having a lot of trouble finding user-experienced people,” he said.

More companies are dividing the various aspects of the job, he said. A business might want a usability researcher to go out and talk with users and examine what they’re comfortable with. Then it might employ a usability design expert to incorporate the researcher’s findings into the way a product works.

According to information compiled by the usability association in 2005, annual pay in the field in the United States started at about $49,000 and rose to about $120,000. The average salary was $86,500.

Usability position are receiving more visibility within companies, and high-ranking positions like director of usability are being created, Mr. Danas of Microsoft said. “From a career standpoint I think there’s a lot of opportunity, and that’s getting broader every day," he said.

Fresh Starts is a monthly column about emerging jobs and job trends.

- Angela

Sure, in the beginning you are all hyped about working for one of the greatest companies, if not THE greatest company, in the world.

But, what about a year later once the buzz wears off?  Is there still “Honey” in the Moon a year later?  I spoke with Program Manager Mel Sampat, to find out that very thing. 

JobsBlog first interviewed Mel in February 2006, when he was a newly hired PM on the Windows Mobile Team.  Now, that he's a seasoned Microsoft veteran, tune in to hear about his experiences and what he's learned over the past year.

powered by ODEO

Click here to download this podcast.

- Jim

If you've been wondering what it means to be a Program Manager at Microsoft, let me introduce you to Eric Richardson.

Eric is a Group Program Manager who works in the Product Activation space within Operations, running the day-to-day business of protecting MS customers against counterfeit and non-genuine software.

Many people are confused when they hear the title Program Manager. Program Management is a great career for all types of people, whether you are a die-hard coder, love making things work better, enjoy communication, or just think that putting all the pieces together is very rewarding.

Eric has been gracious enough to answer a few questions to let the readers know what is really behind this great position.  

Eric, please tell me a little bit about yourself.

Before coming to Microsoft, I was working in Manhattan at a few “dot coms”. Prior to that, I spent several  years at Nabisco, running a large number of websites that used shockwave gaming as a great way to help with brand awareness.  Before that, I worked at a few software companies and spent a few years as a self-employed author and magazine article writer. 

For my education, I went to Penn State University right out of high school and then the University of Phoenix. My plan was to be an engineer, I have 5 consecutive generations of EE in the family; We have a family circuit, not a family tree, so being an EE is what we do. Oddly, I ended up getting an undergrad degree in Information Systems and went on to get an MBA in Technology Management.

What Brought You to Microsoft?

As you can tell, technology runs in my family. I was drawn to Microsoft since I would get to use technology about a year or so before anyone else in the world would see it.  I love being at a company that looks to the future.  I also always heard about how stunning the Northwest is, and I wanted to see it for myself. I have not been disappointed for a second. It was a dramatic change, but a welcome one, from the frenetic life of Manhattan! 

How much coding do you do?

While I’m a technical guy, I don’t code anymore as that’s not my job function. Do I play with code in my spare time? SURE!  But in the 7 + years I’ve been at Microsoft, I went from a technical Program Manager (PM) using my undergrad degree to a Group Program Manager (GPM), “run the business” guy, using my MBA.   

How much interaction do you have with Developers and Testers?

My team relies on applications to perform our role, so I still have the pleasure of working with some very, very smart Devs and Testers! 

What does a PM actually do at Microsoft?

Our PMs really are there to set the direction of the application, or feature their own. They have to work with the business team to identify what features are needed and drive the schedule and communication.  PMs need to know what the various functional areas (i.e. Dev and test) are working on, but also need to integrate that work into a larger whole. That could be rolling out a huge billing system into an existing infrastructure or perhaps integrating a few small features in Office, etc.  As a PM, you own the schedule, scope, and resources for the features or app you are assigned. 

What skills are required for PMs?

Communication is #1, it’s also #2!  You have to be able to communicate in team meetings, status meetings, lucid issues logs, follow-up on actions and mapping out and identifying dependencies on your work. As a PM, you are the heart of the team. 

What career path is available for PMs?

Usually, you start out as a fairly junior PM and then move to a larger and wider impacting project. If you and your manager agree that the next step is to be a manager, you’ll be Senior Program Manager and then eventually a Group Program Manager.

The next step is to become a Director (or Product Unit Manager depending on the group) and you can keep moving up from there.  PMs are very frequently where Directors come from due to the scope of work that they do; They understand all technical aspects, but also are strategic enough to see and manage the big picture. 

What has been your most rewarding moment as a PM?

When I was working with Dev and Test teams day-to-day, I was building an application to help us manage our Volume Licensing customers. It was called “Subscription Management Component” and was launched years ago with little fanfare. This application today ensures that customers who are responsible for 75% of our revenue get what they need on time.  For the most part, this was a true “Dream Team” that I worked with, and I truly enjoyed that project.

Any last thoughts?

Never will you find yourself more challenged and having to use every bit of your skills and abilities, as you do working here! It’s really an awesome place to work!

Thanks, Eric!

-Janelle

One of the most common jobs people ask me about is being an SDET (Aka. Tester). People are afraid that being a tester means that you never get to code, you are isolated from the “action”, and that it's boring. 

My other favorite question that I get when I offer people tester positions is: “What do I do while the machines are testing? Am I free to go or can I play video games while the testing is in progress?” That couldn’t be farther from the truth!

To dispel some of the myths surrounding this job, I would like to ask a few questions to an actual tester, Justin Marks. Justin was most recently a Lead SDET II for the Windows Shell team, but has just switched to working as a Program Manager II.

The Windows Shell team was responsible for the outer layer of Windows during the Vista product cycle.  This includes key features such as the Start menu, Windows Explorer, the control panel, and any other feature that sits on top of the core Windows APIs.  In addition to the UI, the shell team provides a broad selection of public APIs for accessing the Shell. 

Here is my interview with Justin: 

What brought you to Microsoft?

After living in Miami, Florida for the first 20 years of my life, I decided to go to a school with a “better” climate so I matriculated to MIT.  During my freshman year, I applied for an internship as a SDET at Microsoft and was rejected.  Staying persistent, I applied again the following year and was accepted into a (Systems Engineer) SE position.  SE is a very unique position that mostly deals with configuring servers (basically, IT management on steroids). 

I came out to Seattle for the summer and worked for the Office Update team.  Over the summer, I spent a lot of my free time playing racquetball, eating at a ridiculous number of Teriyaki restaurants, and completing my MCSE certification exams (I was totally into IT management back then). 

Before the internship, I never intended to work at Microsoft as a full time employee, I just thought that it would be a good place to spend the summer and gain some experience for my resume.  Fortunately, I absolutely fell in love with Seattle and Microsoft.  The Northwest isn’t Great for nothing!  By the end of the summer, I had interviewed for a full time position, been accepted, and decided to graduate MIT a full year early just so I could get out here faster. 

When I came back to Microsoft, I worked for a year and a half in MSN running the day-to-day operations of MSN.com and then decided that I wanted a position where I could be more technical and work on the development of a “box” product instead of a service.  Hence, I became a tester on the Windows Shell team.

What is an average day like for a tester at Microsoft?

It’s hard to describe an average day for a tester, simply because no day is average.  Not to demean the other disciplines, but the tester is really the one doing all the juggling. 

Common tasks of a tester include: reviewing specs and dev designs, writing test plans, coding automated test cases, running manual test cases for things that can’t be automated (God forbid!), filing bugs, reviewing SDK documentation, “Self-Hosting” (a term used around Microsoft that simply means using the latest build of the product on a daily basis and looking for bugs in and more importantly, outside your feature areas, filing bugs, reviewing dev code changes, reviewing “resolved” bugs and activating them again when the dev didn’t really fix the problem), filing bugs, working with real customers on issues, attending trainings on a variety of topics, reading, triaging bugs with the feature team, representing bugs in triage, war, etc.  

I know that this is a big list, but you really do all of this every week, if not every day.  For me, my goal as a tester is to be the last line of defense for the customer. I have to ensure that the customer will be happy with how the product is, not some dream of what it should be.

How much coding do you do?

Again, it depends (I’m starting to sound like an accounting class).  In general, testers write as much code as possible (why manually test when you can write an automation to do it for you).  In addition to writing automated tests and libraries of functions to support them, many testers are involved in side projects for tools to solve different problems that the organization is facing. 

A great example of this was a tool one of my peers worked on which enabled manual testing of common controls.  The tool allows a user to setup a control (like a button or progress bar) with any settings they wish and then interact with it either manually or by APIs.  This dramatically improved manual testing for the area as well as reduced the amount of time needed for creating repro applications – just run the tool and do what you want, don’t waste time writing something custom each time a new scenario has a bug. 

Today, this tool is used by the entire feature team and has gotten accolades across the org for being a HUGE improvement in the way the team designs, tests, and develops new features.

What has been your most rewarding moment as a tester?

My most rewarding moment as a tester has been getting to develop the model for performance testing across my entire team.  I was tasked to take on the “performance project” after 3 other testers failed to make a large impact.  Working with one of my colleagues, we were able to create a complete end-to-end infrastructure (by pushing “go”, machines would install the latest build, configure the OS with files, programs, etc. and run a collection of performance tests, automatically analyzing the results and filing bugs). 

The project was so successful that we are expanding it for Windows 7 to a broader audience across the Windows client instead of just the shell team.  The project gave me the opportunity to not only design and code the infrastructure, but to broaden my technical knowledge of the entire Windows project.  Performance issues are not contained to individual feature areas – often they span many features and teams. 

During this project, I worked with members of the entire Shell team (300 people) on a daily basis and really got a feel of how the breadth of the OS fits together instead of looking at things from a depth based perspective, as is the case when working on just a single or couple of feature areas.

What are peoples’ conceptions of what a tester does?

Outside of Microsoft, people think of testers as the ones doing grunt work, manually installing products, and testing them haphazardly by just poking at them.  The reality is that testing is much more thought out and methodical. 

With a product the size of Office or Windows, it’s important to think about what test cases matter, how features will interact, and how testing can be reproducible. We want to understand the bugs so we can fix them, not just report that something went wrong, but we don’t know where or why. 

Inside Microsoft, testing is an equal discipline to Dev and PM.  They are not the “wicked stepbrother” that people outside the company often assume them to be.  Unfortunately, to the testing “profession”, there are very few resources on how to test software well.  In addition, most colleges barely touch on the subject: “don’t forget to test your code” is about as far as software design classes go. 

It’s my hope that as the software industry continues to mature (don’t forget, we’re all pretty new at this), a bigger emphasis will be placed on testing as a whole. Some best practices from Microsoft, as well as many other companies in the field, will be shared and taught to individuals interested in software design.

What skills are required for testing?

Generally, if you ask someone what skills are required for being a tester, you often hear things like, “be good at breaking things”, “be inquisitive”, or “take apart toasters”.  While these are all good skills, the reality is that a tester is no different than a developer.  There’s a reason why the title at Microsoft is not Tester, it’s Software Developer in Test.  WE’RE DEVELOPERS!  We just happen to develop tests and tools, not the product itself. 

When I interview SDET candidates, I look for intelligence and coding skills first, and testing skills second.  If you can code well, you know how to debug code and fix the issues in it.  That’s what we do, just on a broader scale.  It’s nice if you can think about a list of test cases.  Try it on your next software problem set – how would you test the function you just wrote?  What would a good list of test cases be?  The list should be LONG, like more than 50 cases (and I’m not talking about putting the numbers 1-50 in as inputs). 

Think about things like globalization: what happens if your function was being run on a system in Germany? What about in Israel, with right-to-left languages? What about accessibility: if someone is blind can they use your program? What about border cases? What about security?  Testing is not easy, but if you’re methodical, you can usually come up with a lot of “creative” test cases.

What career path is available for testers?

There’s no difference between a tester’s career path and a developer's.  Do you want to go down the path of management and become a lead or manager of managers? Do you want to become more technical and move into a test architect position? Do you want to own more feature areas?  Do you want to own horizontal areas like performance or security?  Do you want to become a Dev or PM later on?  You are in no way limited to career choices just because you’re a tester. 

Thanks, Justin!

- Janelle