After One Month With MS

Well, Do you want to know how Microsoft is?..


Ok... Microsoft Campus is HUGE!!.. We have many buildings, many many buildings.. My building is building 28.. We have almost like 5 soccer fields in the campus, probably like 1 baseball field and basketball courts in some buildings.. U can come to work at anytime u want to.. Almost all communications are done by e-mail, I'm still new but there are these automatic groups that u join since u r in their team, so u receive every day at least 20 e-mails.. For me, most likely I receive 8 e-mails that are sent for me (not for a group that I join) by my boss, my team members, MS benefits.. etc..

U have a 1-on-1 meeting every week with ur direct manager to talk about ur progress, any issues that u have, ur plans..etc.. I'm an SDE (Software Development Engineer) in the Windows serviceability team (Team responsible of delivering hot-fixes, service packs and special customer's services) and I have 2 Pcs on my desk.. 2 LCD monitors, and u have a switch so that u actually can switch one LCD between the 2 Pcs... My 2 LCDs work with on pc, and with the switch I can switch one of the LCDs to see the other PC... One of the Pcs is my Development PC, and the other is my testing PC.. U have 2 LCDs attached to one PC because that increases ur productivity in writing code, this way its easier for you to open 2 VS or have 2 maximized windows one on the 1st LCD and other App is on the other one and u can move everything around and c everything clearly without having to minimize and maximize every now and then (and believe me having 2 LCDs is not just nice and fun to have, they actually DO increase ur productivity)..

Right now buildings are crowded and they r building new buildings to fit all MS employees, so I'm currently sharing an office with some1, so almost every office now contain two SDEs or SDETs (SDE in Test).. Except ofcourse Team leads and PMs who have their own single offices.. U have this MS ID card, where u enter the buildings just by passing it infront of this thing so that the door opens for u, no one should be in MS campus unless he's a visitor or an employee, otherwise MS security will ask him to leave asap and 'll make sure that no one un-authorized is in the campus..

Each floor in the buildings have free video game, foosball (the little soccer table with little players) or an Xbox in one of the meeting rooms (all these games are actually in my building).. There is also free Cokes , popcorn, Starbucks Coffee.. all free.. You have a lot of meetings every week, and I mean a lot of meetings.. My outlook calendar is filled with meetings and events and sessions.. Some of the sessions I have them scheduled next June or something!!..

People working in MS are from all countries, u c Arabs, Indians (of course, 2 of my team mates are Indians), Chinese ( have a team mate who's Chinese), British, French (my manager is French), Bangladesh, Turkey and of course from the US (one of my team members also is American).. So my team consists of 5 and our team lead is 6..

People in Microsoft are really really nice, really funny, and really polite.. We have this gr8 environment between us, which makes us really a team.. U r flexible to do anything u want, which makes u comfort, so u want to make others comfort, which reflect to the way u work, so u want to produce more and more, in a better way.. Which I think is excellent environment to work.. In my 1st and 2nd week I had this 3 or 4 meetings, where all the WinSE Devs (Windows serviceability Developers) join and all we did was introducing new employees like me, and introducing old employees and having jokes and laughs!.. :-) so we r really working hard..

One thing that I really really liked, and still amazed!.. is that I met all people who interviewed me.. and they all remember me by NAME!!.. I come to them say Hey, u might not remember me, and before even I complete my sentence, they say.. heyyy.. I remember u.. U r Hany Barakat from Egypt!!.. even my manager's manager remembered me by name!!.. btw they didn't remember others who got accepted in same interviews last year.. THEY ONLY REMEMBER ME.. AND BY NAME!!!

I also met Priya, she was my recruiter, we had this welcome party one day, I had some energy so I was all over the party making jokes and playing with everyone, That made Priya ask me to have an interview with her to post it on Microsoft Jobs blog!!.. so we r having this next week in the Cafe while having lunch.. so my name is gonna be on MS website from the 1st month at work!!.. :-) cool !!..

Right now I'm using C++ in the product that I'm working on now, which might scare some people coz we didn't study C++ in school and I always thought that VC++ is really hard.. but this is not Visual, this is only C++, u either work on a console application or a library, I never liked VC++, but C++ is fine.. also I'm in WinSE team, so most of the code is already there, I only either fix something in it or redesign it to work better.. and if there is any function that I don't understand, there are many places to look it up and know what exactly it does.

Owns in MS means this part is yours, u r responsible for it.. it's ur code.. I own this tool that I'm working on right now which 'll be shipped n sha2 Allah with Windows Longhorn Server next year.. and after Windows Vista is shipped, I 'll own many of the file systems and new file systems in it, and I 'll also own the command propmpt!!.. the cmd.exe!!.. :-).. which I find cool to own something used by many people!..

In MS we don't use VS to build or compile, instead we have this command prompt tool to build and compile our code.. and u can edit ur code anyway u want, but u only compile using this tool..
The first thing u do is do something called enlisting (downloading the source code on ur machine to be able to compile).. only if u have permissions to.. and since I'm in the WinSE team I can enlist any Windows version to compile..

Actually there is still a lot to talk about!!.. so y don't we leave it in another post?.. hope 2 c u all soon.