By: Anne Cheng 

Maybe you aren’t interested in working in the US, or are ready to move to a fun new locale to try something new. Did you know that Microsoft has research and development centers in: Ireland (Dublin), UK (Reading and Cambridge), Germany (Aachen), Denmark (Vedbæk), Switzerland (Zurich), Egypt (Cairo), Israel (Haifa), China (Beijing and Shanghai) and India (Hyderabad and Bangalore)?  And, that's just a few of our dev centers across the globe.

Microsoft is hiring now for positions all around the world.  Your best bet is to check out our Global Careers site for information on available opportunities both in the US and abroad.  And before you apply, read up on hot new positions, get insider views on the locations, and meet some of our professionals who are happy to share their experiences by visiting the Microsoft International Tech Jobs blog. 

This blog is hosted by our wonderful Declan Fitzgerald, Lead Recruiter at Microsoft Ireland, who understands that sometimes job descriptions just don’t provide enough information…imagine that. Declan's blog provides some very frank and honest information, mostly from employee video interviews that explain what their jobs are, what their team is working on, and why they like working for Microsoft.

There’s also interviews from senior management explaining their team challenges and work philosophies.  In addition, you can view cultural videos (sometimes in many of the local languages) describing a variety of other topics, such as what training we offer employees at Microsoft, to how you should prepare your CV when sending your application. 

The blog is new and growing fast in terms of rich diverse content, so make sure you sign up to the RSS feeds for whatever subject catches your attention. I hope you enjoy the International Tech Jobs blog and don’t forget to leave Declan a comment!

- Anne

There is a dark side to being transparent... 

Where have I been?  I have been swallowed up by the endless offers and questions around employment at the Microsoft Vancouver Development Centre.  The last few weeks have been times of big growth for me, as I have realized how little I actually know about international employment and how often I have to say, "I don't know".

I have been asked everything from how to get your pets immunized for Canadian customs, to how to get a discount on a Canadian bus pass.  And, it seems I am filled with seemingly unsolvable questions. Everyone loves the idea of being "transparent", until you don't know the answers.

The good news is, that I am now emerging from the bottom of my email and I have nearly every SDET and SDE who was impacted by the H1B visa cap, placed in a job in Vancouver.  And I'm starting to say, "I don’t know", a whole lot less often.

So, what do we know?

Well, plenty of people will be in the new Microsoft Canada Vancouver office starting in September, and waves of others will be joining in October and November. Next month, will mark the 6 month mark of when we first dreamed up this office. 

Yes, that is right- an international office conceived of and fully operational in a span of less than 6 months.  So to anyone who wonders if Microsoft is still a nimble and innovative company- I can tell you that I have lived through it and can confidently say,"yes". 

For the next few months, I am happy to be a little less nimble and a whole lot more relaxed...Vancouver has worn me out.  But, for all of the people who I personally placed in this last month, I thank you for your patience and am thrilled to have you as a part of the team!

- Jenna

Wow, all of you are keeping me busy! My email is full of questions about Vancouver. 

As promised, this is my follow-up post about what happens now in regards to the H1B visa situation and the Vancouver Development Centre.  Please understand that this is all happening quickly and I am doing my best to keep up.  I will share with you everything I know, but in exchange, I ask for your understanding and patience if some of the details are still evolving over the next few weeks.

Right now, we are all painfully busy planning for Vancouver and we are contacting all of the managers who have impacted employees and asking them, “Do you want to have this person work in Vancouver?”.

 If the answer is “yes”, this is what happens next:

We are working behind the scenes to align your office space and project in Canada.  We are also figuring out the questions around Canadian visas, relocation packages and travel expectations to-and-from Canada. 

We expect to roll out “new” Vancouver offers in late July or early August.  You will receive the new letter from your recruiter. These offers will be comparable in compensation/benefits to your last offer. We hope to relocate people to Canada and have them start working as early as September or as late as November, and we suspect these start dates will happen in “waves” depending on the details of each case. 

Vancouver will likely be comprised of lots of different people working on lots of different teams that have counterparts in Seattle, although there is talk about permanently housing intact teams in Vancouver in the future.

In addition, let me clear up a rumor: There is space for everyone in Vancouver.  While I can’t disclose the exact number of people who had rejected H1Bs, or the office space capacity in Vancouver, I can tell you that I have looked into it and there is plenty of room for all.

On the other hand, if the manager's answer is “no”, this is what happens next:

In addition to asking teams if they want to have their current hires relocate to Vancouver, we are also asking them, “How many new hires would you like to have if extra people become available?”. 

Some teams with aggressive hiring goals are pre-slotting new openings in Vancouver now.  This means that if your immediate manager does not want you to move, that we will proactively try to find you a new role on another team in Canada. 

In this case, you won’t have to interview again and your offer compensation and title won’t change. However, your manager and team would change.  We would then roll out an offer to you in the same process noted above.

It all sounds good, right?  For the most part it is, although there is one wrinkle.  This currently looks very favorable for SDE and SDETs, although it is slightly rougher for PMs, Media specialists or other roles.  There is a general opinion that some roles function better remotely than others, so while I suspect I can safely encourage the SDEs and SDETs that everything is going to work out fine, I’m not yet sure about other roles.  This remains to be seen.

For those of you wondering when new jobs will be open in Vancouver for new people to apply, the answer is, I don’t know, yet.  We will continue to hire people into Vancouver, but we are currently focused on placing the people who have offers now. 

I will be off of work next week on vacation, so you can expect my responses to lag until I return on the 23rd. 

Where will I be going on vacation?  Vancouver!  Really!   And, it’s not a business trip - it is purely for fun.  Vancouver is an awesome city, and for any of you who are looking at a move there, you should be thrilled.

-Jenna

This blog has been a-buzz with comments and questions about the H1B visa cap in the US and the impacted individuals who have had their sponsorship and employment stalled.

Saavy readers will notice that I have been unusually quiet about the topic, and the reason is because I knew we had a plan in the works…

Now, I can let all of the rest of you in on the secret: we decided to expand our footprint north of the border, and are opening a development center in Vancouver, Canada!

Microsoft believes that Vancouver is an international gateway to the world and an attractive destination for Canadians and people from other countries around the world looking for highly skilled jobs.  And since we have development centers around the world both within the US and outside the US, what is just one more office? We are delighted about expanding Microsoft Canada's presence to the greater Vancouver area with the Microsoft Canada Development Centre.

So, what does this have to do with the US H1B visa cap?  Not only will this be a full development center, but it will also be a great alternative location for some of the new hires into Microsoft who have not been able to get their H1B visas this year due to the limited quota. Since Vancouver is just a short train/car ride away, it will be easy to stay in touch.

We are targeting to open this development center in September and I can’t wait to make a trip up there.  Vancouver has awesome shopping, and sushi.  Don’t forget Whistler is so close, too!

So, I hope to see you all there!

-Jenna

I returned my new iPhone today.

It was a heartbreaking process - considering that I stood in line for hours and spent subsequent additional hours calling the Apple and AT&T support lines to help me get it to work.  Between the activation woes and the now unrevivable phone battery, I have given up and returned my young love to its original home.

On my way to the store, my head was filled with the comments on this blog yesterday about the suspended dreams of Microsoft employment and the lack of answers from recruiting.  As I went through the return process of my finicky phone, I felt the frustration of being sold a shiny new box that failed to work properly. Then, I thought of all of you and the crisp offer letter from Microsoft that has not materialized due to immigration constraints. 

I realized that I am your virtual AT&T/Apple hold-up: the promise of something great, yet no one will help you fix it. Now, this is not to say that I think a new phone is in any way comparable to a new job.  International relocation and visa sponsorship is life changing, and my phone is a mere blip in communication. 

But, this realization did make me zip home from the store today and push for some more answers for all of you on the next steps on Vancouver.

I will be posting two follow-up topics in the next week: one about what’s been going on behind the scenes as we have been struggling with the visa cap, and another post about what you can expect for next steps.

Consider the Vancouver/Seattle swap the Smartphone/Apple equivalent. I’m hoping Microsoft pulls through for all of us.

Stay Tuned -

Jenna

As promised, I am writing a two-part post about the H1B visa issue and Vancouver Development Centre option.  In this post, I will explain what is going on inside Microsoft.  And in the next one, I’ll let you know what to expect going forward.

Up until now, I have had blind faith in the massive Microsoft legal team and the process of obtaining visas.  In the 9 years that I have worked here, I have never personally seen someone’s offer revoked due to lack of sponsorship.  So, when the H1B cap came this year and we had impacted new hires, it came as a surprise to me. 

I had seen the news and read the facts beforehand, and therefore, knew the impending risk of the situation.  But, based on my past history and naivety, I thought it would just all work out fine.  However, soon there was a collective feeling of uncertainly and confusion inside Microsoft Staffing, as most of us (including me) said, “what are we going to do now?”.

In defense of Microsoft, several people had been working on this issue long before the cap was reached. But, now instead of it just being a possible threat - it was reality- and those teams went into action.  However, the people on the forefront of the problem (the new hires and the recruiters) had the least information of all.

Why? Well, in this process we have several communication points.  We have the U.S. government (who we were waiting on for rejection/acceptance notices) and we have our internal and external legal teams who had managed the process. 

A lot of the Microsoft visa process is outsourced. So the communication about what was happening, was like a giant game of telephone: the U.S. government communicated to the external legal team - then the external legal team communicated to Microsoft legal - then Microsoft legal communicated to Staffing - and Staffing communicated to the individual recruiter - who, finally, communicated to the candidate. In some instances, we got the information quickly.  But in other instances, it was very, very slow.

The trickiest part, is that we also weren’t sure what to say.  We knew that without visa sponsorship we could not employ you in the U.S., but this brought a host of other questions: Can you work remotely? If your country of origin does not have a Microsoft office, can you work from home? What if we have already relocated you to the U.S., do we have to send you back? Do we let individual teams determine how to handle this, or will we have a unilateral decision from Microsoft?  And, on and on…

Fairly quickly, we mobilized on Vancouver. Recruiters knew all along this was an option, but we did not mention this until it was final.  In the last few weeks, I have questioned if that was the right decision. I have settled on “yes”.  There was so much uncertainty, that it would have been unfair to mention this possiblity and give some people false hope, if we were unable to deliver.  So, we gave a fairly bland and frustrating answer: "we are evaluating options, but currently, you do not have valid work sponsorship”. 

I feel badly the way this has happened, but I struggle on how it could have gone differently.  While I know regular communication would have helped - how helpful is it if you don’t have any answers?  I’m not sure.

But regardless, I now have an offer for you. If you are someone who accepted a Microsoft offer, but did not receive an H1B visa, you can email me: jennah-at-microsoft-dot-com with your full name and your questions, and I will answer you personally.  I will also email you my phone number if you prefer to talk about it by phone.

If you are not a presently impacted H1B candidate (someone who accepted an offer, but did not get a visa), I won’t reply. So, please no trickery.

In my next post, I will cover what has happened between our announcement and now, and what you can expect going forward. 

-Jenna

I knew that Microsoft was making an impact on the economy in Hyderabad, but I didn't know how significant it was.

Check out this video where my friend AK Menon explains the positive influence we have made in India.  And if you like what AK has to say, hear more about the MS India Development Center on my previous post. 

Video: Microsoft IDC - Hyderabad

- Jim

India is…

• Friendly people; actually, lots and lots and lots of friendly people
• A rich diversity of culture and thought
• Kinetic and expansive
• Mystery, history and the nouveau - side by side
• And the Taj Mahal, oh, it was SO beautiful!

I took a lot of pictures and made a lot of new friends who were passionate (and that’s an understatement) about working for our India Development Center.  Click below to check out the video wall I made in celebration of my trip there.

Thanks again Microsoft!
 - Jim