I'm a part of the AMC(Association for Computing Machinery), basiclly a Computer Science and Math club. This Friday we took a trip to Redmon(Where the HQ of Microsoft is, about 5 hours away. We got there, slept on a church floor. Saturday morning we head over to Microsoft for some Q&A time, a tour, and to make contacts. I went because I thought it would be fun, although I did not like the idea of me working at a large company. I wanted to work at a small one. We had 2 panels, 8-7 people each time, for us to ask questions about basicly anything. THe first panel was newbies, people working less than 5 years, where the second were the OGS, all who worked there no less than 10 years. Each question we asked made me grow fonder of working there more and more. Also I had been planning on doing an internship my Senior summer. They all stressed how great internships are and how it will help, making me choose to hopefully intern at a small company next summer, then Microsoft, or even Google( I really don't want to work there for many reasons, including the companies future, or highly possible lack-there-of) or eBay, the summer after. We were supposed to ask them questions for 1.5-2 hours, but we asked them about 2.5 hours(It flew by). It was great during lunch to talk to them all and get to know them all better, and hear some more intiment thoughts and what they do. After both panels we took a tour all around. That was alot of fun. My prof used to work at Microsoft and the two people taking us around he worked with(Hired one who then eventually became his boss sorta, and a guy he worked closely with). It was fun hearing stories of everything and what they did. Then we just hung out with a few of the people, talking and playing foosball(A very very big thing at Microsoft to take off the stress. They all are really good).

Some pictures.


A five foot tall detailed box of Visual Studio 2005(A program to code) where all the people who worked on it signed. I found it cool.

A funny(I thought) sign in their bathroom.

Bad picture of a testing room with about 100+ computers running.

And another




It was alot of fun learning so much about people that work there and what they do and like and dislike(They honestly couldn't think of anything they hated, other than stress). It made me want to work there.

 

I have an interview with them on april 11th for a 9-month co-op experience. Good to know that they are a bunch of cool guys!

 

Yea i hate working with people who work all up tight.

 

Good luck. Interview process is hard, but they all said they had fun. Hopefully it will be a lunch interview.

You know what the interview consists of right?

 

Wow, that's pretty nerdy.

Hope you had fun.

 

my friend is a manager there, he gets to hang out with Billy boy once a month at his pad

Where are you applying for within the company? From what I can tell its a pretty cool company to work for but he has to do some gay shit like be on teleconference calls at like 9pm because part of his team will be in India or some shit like that..............

 

My friend works there. Good pay.

 

And long hours.

First off, I'll say I'm sure that MSFT (if you don't know that apprev, then you don't know about stocks) is a great company to work for; a juggernaut in it's market, successful company, lots of cash to do all sorts of things.

Each company has its own culture which creates social norms that you either adhere to or go against the grain (which is bad politics and most likely limits your career there, the "good projects", bonuses and raises, etc). For example, the s/w division always put in late hours. We know someone who felt "guilty" for going out on a Friday night because so many other people in the office work late... even on Friday.

The amazing growth in the company has created lots of rich people... and has created a culture of "rich life" meaning people feel a need to own expensive cars and aspire to "own a boat", etc.

Maybe my wife and I are a little bitter... but we personally know a woman who's husband worked at Microsoft, WA. After working long hours and weekends, (and having two kids) her husband decided he really wanted a boat. So he divorced her and left her with the kids so he could live that lifestyle.

And I'm sure to his coworkers, he's really cool for having a boat and probably inviting them on it sometimes; and just unfortunately his marriage didn't work... cuz you know, sometimes divorce happens.

I just don't understand people who sell their soul and families to a company.

 

They chose their own hours, so its him that chose to work so long and stuff. Obviously he didn't use his time as well as he could have. When was that? Alot of people there have families now so they're pretty flexible with stuff.

 

What is the address to go to the tour?