The Road Not Taken
"...Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
-- Robert Frost
You may have noticed that I've been more quiet than normal for the past month or two. There is a reason for that. I have decided to leave my current company of almost 4 years for another opportunity. Starting Monday, October 8, 2007, I will be a full time employee of Microsoft on the Premier Field Engineering team! If you're not familiar with this position at Microsoft, the description on the Microsoft Careers site states:
"The purpose of the Premier Field Engineer (PFE) position is to provide Microsoft customers with reliable technical solutions to the complex integration problems associated with business solutions built on the Microsoft platform. The PFE Team supports a diverse variety of technical solutions built with Microsoft technology and products Typical tasks performed in this role include specific problem isolation and correction, user and kernel mode debugging, conducting application design and supportability reviews, performance tuning, application stability consulting/troubleshooting, code reviews, and porting/migration assistance, configuration management, pre-rollout testing and general development consulting. The prospective PFE candidate should draw upon all resources at Microsoft, to advise and consult on the use of Microsoft technologies to avoid such problems in the future."
This position immediately appealed to me because of its customer focus and technically challenging environment. Plus, I get to help developers do their job better! That alone is a great high for me and I'm really looking forward to this new adventure! From speaking with members of my new team and my future manager, I can tell that this team is composed of incredibly intelligent folks and I am honored to be joining them.
All that said, though, this decision was far from easy for me to make. I have had the distinct honor to work with some wonderful folks at my current company. Plus, I was able to architect and design some great applications. In the end, though, I knew that I had to take the road "less traveled by" and join a company that is constantly changing the world.
Here's a quick FAQ on the process and my new position:
- Do you have to move?
Nope. I get to stay in good ol' Chicago for the time-being. Even better, I get to work from home when I'm not at a client site.
- Wait, does that mean you don't get to go to Redmond at all?
Well, actually, I do. For all folks in this arm of Microsoft's service group, your first three weeks are spent in Redmond at a bootcamp. This is where I'll get wonderful things like my ID badge, laptop and learn all about the Service leg of MS.
- How did you find out about the job? How did you apply, interview, etc.?
Well, one of my friends sent me a link to the initial Job Details page saying that it might be a good fit for me. After that, it was just a matter of signing up on the MS Careers site and submitting my resume. This was the first time that I had ever applied to Microsoft before, so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. Pretty soon after I officially applied, though, I received an e-mail from an Recruiter over there and everything kind of snowballed from there. All in all, the process took just over a month, from initial communication to the Offer stage. I probably could have shortened that time-span, but I wanted to provide adequate time to prepare for each interview.
- What were the interviews like?
Well, my interview came in three stages:
1. HR phone interview. This was there the Recruiter got to tell me about the position, the company, normal tasks, etc. He also asked some fairly basic .NET questions.
2. Technical Screen. This was an hour-long phone conversation with an incredibly sharp guy. The questions were NOT easy, in-fact, this was probably the most difficult tech screen I have ever encountered. They were simply not interested in how you develop a webpage, but instead asked some really difficult questions about garbage collection, the JIT compiler, and loads of .NET memory related questions. We also got into some Windbg debugging and memory dumps. Certainly not for the faint of heart.
3. In-Person Technical Interview and Managerial Interview. This was about 2 hours long at one of the local MS offices and included a technical interview with 2 PFE's and a managerial type interview with 2 PFE Managers. The technical interview included more of the same types of questions mentioned above but also included some best practice-type questions about Exception Handling and debugging issues. The managerial interview included a lot of behavioral questions and also about how you manage difficult situations.
- How did you prepare for them?
I took a page from Jayson Knight's blog and studied my little heart out. My average was about 4 hours every night studying everything I could find and then some. I re-read several books and tons of great blogs.
- What's going to happen to your blog?
For the time being, I'm planning to keep it updated, but the focus may change a bit. As my new position will include a lot of deep technical dives into some great technologies - the focus may be a bit more deeply technical in nature. As I have always tried to keep the focus on simplifying development, though, expect more of those same types of entries.
- How did management at your current company take the news?
Honestly, their reaction surprised me. LOL...in a good way, I suppose. They didn't even try to keep me. As soon as I said "Microsoft" their eyes lit up and they offered their congratulations and gave me many hearty handshakes and hugs. They all knew that this was a dream for me and it's nice to know that they were as happy for me as I was. It was truly a testament to the wonderful and supportive folks that they employ.
All in all, I feel very fortunate to have been given this incredible opportunity. I can't wait to start my new adventure!