Microsoft needs Wizards: A 1984 Microsoft job posting
groups.google.com
groups.google.com
"""I can remember going to the first Microsoft Company picnic in 1988. There were only two children. Microsoft had 1,800 employees and there were only a couple of them that were married. You had all these young kids who weren't married and were right out of school. IBM had conventional dress codes; Microsoft - it was very much like a college campus. The only difference in how they lived, the hours they kept and the way they dressed, between a college campus and Microsoft was that Microsoft bought the equipment. They all wore their shorts and half of them wore sandals or no shoes. Microsoft bought a lot of T-shirts and things for them. There weren't set hours - the management system was to let people pick or sign up for what they were going to do, and it was up to them to do it. So there was very little management attention over directing people or telling them what to do - it was a very empowered work force. And my suspicion was that that was the way IBM was in the 1930s and 1940s. They were much more formal, because the time was much more formal in terms of dress. But in terms of the ages and the attitudes and the mission the people were on - I think it would be a lot the same."""
I especially liked the section where he hi lights Microsoft's hiring practice as one of the main differentiators from its competitors
""" So we had a very intensive interview process. The last interviewer was called the hiring manager, but after every interview, as the candidate left the office, the interviewer sent out an email and wrote the result of the interview. So by the end of the 6th interview, the hiring manager had all reviews but the one where the guy was at that time. The first word on the write-up had to be “hire” or “no-hire”. There wasn't any "maybe" or... "This guy would be good in some other group". It was ... “I would work with this guy” or not. “I think he would work into my group” or not. So the hiring manager then had all of these write-ups and all of these decisions or recommendations. And he would decide whether or not to offer the guy a job. If we offered the guy or gal a job, then the next day would be spent in trying to talk them into realizing how good it was to work at Microsoft; that it's a good place to live and all those things…being nice to them for a change.
Of the 10 we'd bring back, we'd hire one. So we hired about 1 out of every 100 that we initially interviewed. So the total picture is: we've interviewed 10 guys, 8 times each - 80 interviews. We interviewed 100 guys one time, 100 interviews − so we've done about 200 interviews for every person we hired. If you think about hours - that's a lot of hours, and recruiters aren't going to do that. Recruiters aren't going to test coding ability. We had recruiters who managed the logistics and managed the reference checks. We also did aggressive reference checks − we had a whole series of questions we'd ask. Most people doing reference checks are trying to be kind and nice and so people aren't as accurate as you'd like them to be. So you come up with a whole set of questions like: “I know this guy is really good, but what is the one thing you'd counsel him to improve?” Or you'd try to get them to reveal what were some of the deficiencies"""
Now, people much more junior expect all of that, plus crazy workplaces, free meals, free babysitting, free carwash, free haircuts, etc. I wonder what the current entry level software engineer ad at Microsoft looks like. Which is weird, at my school UW, they weren't even there at the CS career fair. Meanwhile FB was there with free t-shirts, Google had a giant android costumed guy waddling around, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. They all made it seem like you weren't even applying for jobs, and you weren't even expected to actually have to work.
Microsoft definitely helped define the techie dream workplace, even after they got 'huge'. Why did that have to change?
Junior or not, only a tiny percentage of people can get these perks. For example google recieves 1 million CVs a year approximately 5000 of which get a job offer (0.5%). (approximately 35% of those who are allowed to have a phone interview are allowed to the onsite interviews and approximately 25% of the 'onsite-interviewed' people get a job offer.)
http://www.qqtm.info/Interview/Google_Guide.pdf
The 0.5% (in fact less than 0.5%) comes from Google itself, from Don Dodge's blog:
http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2010/09/how-t...
I've researched this because I was on an onsite interview at Google on Tuesday and I am waiting for their answer right now...
And they make it pretty darned easy to apply. There are some other interesting numbers in this infographic - salaries and such: http://img.gtricks.com/2011/10/job-in-google.png
Way back when ... there weren't really career fairs. The big 4 (Microsoft, Boeing, Safeco, and Weyerhaeuser) just advertised in the paper.
If there was a cool time to work for them it had to have been before then.
I mean, when you read this and compare it to what you hear of MSFT today (via Mini, for example), it's not far off to compare it with Google who seems to be shifting from this to something more disciplined with Larry as the CEO. Extrapolating to what might happen to Facebook isn't far off either.
I wonder which large companies have held out against this type of decay through the decades and how they managed it.
Sony had its own approach to this(citing Yoshide Nakamura): Our company management felt that to prepare the company for the digital network era of the 21 century, it was important to have the most appropriate organizational structure in place. That was the core reason why we created our new structure. Sony is a large company now. Our worldwide consolidated sales are over $56 billion, with 170,000 employees, but in spirit we always try to be small venture company. We want to maintain this, So when Mr.Nabuyuki Idei became president in April 1995, he gave us two slogans: "Regeneration" and "Digital Dream Kids." Thats the spirit of being small and going back to when we started Sony in 1946. So we want to make Sony smaller. Instead of having this huge corporation, he wants to organize Sony into four divisional companies so that a small venture capital spirit can be brought into management
With this posting it seems like deep hierarchy bullishit and over-organization is inevitable in any growing organisation.
First: Sounds like a great place to work!
Second: What happend?
Wasn't it pg who said that in early-stage startups you attract people who want to build a great company, but in later stage companies you attract people who want to work for a great company?
I intereviewed at MS as I was graduating college in 1983. My interview loop included Charles Simonyi and Steve Ballmer, who had just gotten a prerelease of the Tandy Model 100 mentioned in the OP and demoed it to me in the interview. It was definitely a programmer-centric world, in the best way; but people I talked to also had a very strong business focus as well. I turned down the job offer to go to grad school ... by the time I wound up there in 1999 after selling them my startup, it was a very different place.
Seriously though, think of what a rockstar is like. High maintenance, on drugs, performs for a short period of time then expects a high payout, goes out late and misses gigs...i dont want a rockstar.
I want a WIZARD! I'm pretty sure wizards are reliable and old school...
In seriousness; all job postings should be written by a member of the department hiring for the position.
Half the time the recruiter is so excited about the opportunity to bring "rockstar" candidates to such an awesome company that they seem to forget to actually read my resume, so I'm interviewing for a position that doesn't match my skill set at all.
"The company is owned (a key issue) and operated by software wizards: Bill Gates and Paul Allen."
Not anymore. Company is now run by a professional bean counter brought into that position by the former software whiz.
Also - BillG really trusts Steve. They've worked together for over 25 years.
Probably counting the number of zeroes in his account balance and realizing that he's answerable to stock-holders now.
The truth is that MS has always been a great company, on all accounts I have ever read on the matter it appears to me that MS is a kind of organization that any hacker would love to work for.
But its been a fifteen years from when MS was considered cool. Hip kids don't want to look at it. They don't even want to educate about it. So they go and work and sing praises to Google and FB, who have just now started to show their different, corporate nature.
And geeks have gone and given them the scepter of Power. And I find it ironic that these new hip companies represent a greater danger to computing, freedom and privacy than MS ever has.
They say that he who fails to learn the lessons of the past is doomed to repeat the same mistakes.
That said, I share my ceiling-high-walled office with one other person and if we need privacy, we can close a physical door.
In all, from my experience, it's a great company to work for. I would recommend it to any of my friends that are seeking work.
Don't think that is true anymore.
Wasn't there a post by a former project manager of Silverlight a while ago? While that may not be representative of Microsoft to that degree, I've worked with enough former Softies to know politics play a big role. Especially in the war between Office and Windows.
James Gordon Letwin (born July 2, 1952)is an American
software developer and one of the original twelve Microsoft
employees.
The Microsoft that can be known is not the eternal Microsoft. The wizards that can whiz are not the eternal wizards.
I have seen a building with some cubicles, but I don't know who uses those.
In one case that I know far too much about they can get 150 people onto a floor that previously held 100 (at which point they are at the code limit for the width of the stairwells, which is in part determined by the number of people expected to use it for emergency egress)
I've been in non-office work environments 3 times in 10 years at MS, thankfully back in my own office now...
It may be different outside of dev however.
What other place in the valley has private offices?
I've seen cube sharing and even PC sharing.
I interviewed with one company where the developers sat in some leftover space between a cubical wall and a real wall.
Another company I worked at a 3 to 4 person "suite" measured in at 10ft x 12ft.
As dedicated internet access became more common UUCP became obsolete.
Don't ask me how it got there, I wasn't around when that happened, but yes, UUCP.
Fortunately, these things are much less common now that software costs are essentially zero.
Lets see how many of the "good" companies of today will turn in future dark side companies as Microsoft is usually associated nowadays.
Ironically I just posted a rant against that crap:
The cartoon image of rockstars as the idle rich with some inborn exceptional talent or some luck of fate that allows them to attain a life of fame and fortune with very little effort is, of course, a much less noble behavioral model to want to emulate.
I miss the Usenet of yesteryear, nothing now comes close, but even I was surprised to look it up just now and see it started in 1980!
Your cool company today can change significantly, and maybe thats ok...but it is a little sad, i think you'd struggle to get a similar recommendation for MS these days.