Here’s where I am dumping a lot of my thoughts about what it’s been like to work at Microsoft, and more generally, how it fits into what I want to do.
Some reflection
What do I do?
In the abstract, I tried to capture this in my system architect page. Specifically to Microsoft though, I struggle to define this because I am a small cog in a very big machine that is designing, manufacturing, deploying, and operating its own supercomputers.
Perhaps a way to define what I do is by asking: if I stopped working tomorrow, who or what would be negatively affected?
What’s good about it?
The perks are good. The CEO is good. I think the company is fundamentally trying to make the world a better place now, and it is doing so in a generally responsible fashion. Of all the big tech corporations, I feel like it’s one of few that I can feel proud to work at. Apple may be the only rival on that front.
What’s not good about it?
Successful Microsoft employees are all-in on Microsoft, understand Microsoft processes, and are happy to learn and use Microsoft tools even if they aren’t the tools that the rest of the world uses. This is acutely apparent in HPC, since so much of Azure’s guts are fundamentally built on Windows-based tools and processes. For example, backend cluster management is done using PowerShell. If your first exposure to HPC is in Microsoft, you’ll have no problem using PowerShell to manage HPC clusters. But if you are an HPC person, it’ll be weird to do and a useless skill to learn outside of HPC in Azure. Even Azure customers do not have access to any of these Windows-based tools; they manage their supercomputers through REST APIs and Linux.
What have I learned?
Just as an elephant has to eat hundreds of pounds of food per day just to sustain itself, giant companies need thousands of employees just to sustain their internal processes. Innovation and research require more “food” on top of that; in principle, you could have some employees work on sustaining and some employees work on innovating, but in practice, both get smeared across all employees to varying degrees. As a result, the ratio of productive-to-bureaucratic work for any given person goes down as the company gets larger. There are some lucky few who get to focus most on productive tasks and spend less time in handshake-style meetings, but those positions aren’t the norm and take a long time to earn.
Microsoft-isms
Since joining Microsoft, I’ve noticed a lot of weird or mildly annoying phrases or business-speak for the first time. I don’t know if these are new phrases or just things that never used to bother me.
| Phrase | Comment |
|---|---|
| ”We should double-click on that” | Surely this is a Microsoft-ism, since double clicking is peak Windows, but I am told people outside the company use this phrase too. |
| ”Little R me” | I think this means “reply, but do not reply-all.” I am told this is some throwback to some ancient Microsoft email program. |
| ”OOF” | This means “out of office,” and I admit to using this because it sounds like Out Of oFfice. But I am told it means “Out Of Facility” which is a throwback to some ancient Microsoft email system. |
| ”I am aligned.” | Rather than saying “I agree,” everyone cases agreement/disagreement/coming to agreement as “alignment.” “We need to align.” “I am not aligned." |
| "I just want to echo…” | When Jane says something important, another person will follow-up with “I just want to echo what Jane said” and then re-state everything Jane just said in their own words. This sort of grandstanding soaks up a lot of meeting time. |
Perks
Microsoft has a bunch of perks, many of which I make use. It follows that I would lose these if I didn’t work at Microsoft. In rough priority order:
| Rank | Perk | Value |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | GitHub Copilot | $10/month |
| 1 | 1:1 donation matching | up to $15,000/year |
| 2 | Subscription to Wall Street Journal | $42/month |
| 2 | Subscription to New York Times | $16.25/month |
| 2 | Subscription to Washington Post | |
| 2 | Subscription to Financial Times | |
| 2 | Subscription to The Information | |
| 3 | Wellness stipend. Taxable, but can be used broadly. | $1,500/year |
| 4 | Free Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for me | $20/month |
| 5 | Azure credit | $150/month |
| 6 | Employee discount on Microsoft Office, Windows, etc | 80% |
| 7 | Employee discount on Xbox/PC games, and Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions for me or others | 50% |
| 8 | Employee discount on Microsoft hardware (Xbox consoles, Surface laptops) | 15% |