New Delhi Times

Gaurav Bhatnagar reporting from New Delhi, India

4 years at Microsoft…not!

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If I had still been working at Microsoft then I would have completed 4 years there yesterday. And if I had carried on for yet another year, I would have gotten that shiny clock as well! And If I had stuck around for yet another year, I might have *gasp* actually shipped something. OK, just kidding, I know Vista will ship before that – and we did ship some stuff while I was there. I had very badly wanted to be there when Vista (then, Longhorn) shipped. But it just kept getting delayed repeatedly. One day it stuck me that I was 22 when I started working on Longhorn and I would probably be at least 27 when it finally ships. Did I really want to spend all of my 20s just shipping a single product – even if it is the most complex software project in the world? But it is amazing that inspite of the long shipping cycles, attrition rate at Microsoft is very low. In fact, in my 3 years there, I was the first person in my group to leave. Microsoft has a very all-encompassing culture and inspite of occasional internal bickering, Microsofties are very loyal and vociferous in their defense of the company. I think that is a hallmark of a great company which takes good care of its employees. Microsoft gets so much bad press but largely the employees remain unfazed and genuinely love working there. So, even though I work with a lot of open source today, you will never catch me spelling it as Micro$oft!

Written by gaurav

December 17th, 2005 at 12:34 pm

Posted in Return To India

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  • http://blog.leadstep.com Vijay

    So you are an ex-microsoft employee… That’s interesting. I agree with you that it’s a great company to work for, which perfectly aligns with what some of my friends who work there tell me.
    So what brings you to India? If you are interested in any ventures related to the software field, ping me, I have a few ideas and maybe we could work something out.
    Regards,
    Vijay Anand

  • http://blog.leadstep.com Vijay

    So you are an ex-microsoft employee… That’s interesting. I agree with you that it’s a great company to work for, which perfectly aligns with what some of my friends who work there tell me.
    So what brings you to India? If you are interested in any ventures related to the software field, ping me, I have a few ideas and maybe we could work something out.
    Regards,
    Vijay Anand

  • http://beautiful.rediffblogs.com Beautiful Life

    What a Motto!
    Slog more…
    Ain’t quite depressing.

  • http://beautiful.rediffblogs.com Beautiful Life

    What a Motto!
    Slog more…
    Ain’t quite depressing.

  • http://spaces.msn.com/members/rashidmalik Rashid Ashraf Malik

    Microsoft really is a company with loads of patience but that has do do something with the gigantic structure of the company.If Microsoft is delaying shipping of a product for 2 yrs,that is not affecting either its market plans and nobody leaves microsoft for this purpose.

  • http://spaces.msn.com/members/rashidmalik Rashid Ashraf Malik

    Microsoft really is a company with loads of patience but that has do do something with the gigantic structure of the company.If Microsoft is delaying shipping of a product for 2 yrs,that is not affecting either its market plans and nobody leaves microsoft for this purpose.

  • http://totobogy.netfirms.com Tushar Malhotra

    Hi, I reached your blog while doing my research on Microsoft. Sorry for bothering but I’d be grateful if you could take some time and advise me.
    I am an engineering fresher (2006 passout) living in gurgaon and have landed an offer from Microsoft for SDE/T position. I was apprehensive about the ‘T’ tag in the beggining of my career but have finally decided to go for it after 2 weeks of research about the profile (mostly on net– blogs etc).
    What I have summed up is:
    1. SDE/t is not a bad profile and there’s considerable amount of development involved.
    2. Testing in itself is not as bad a domain as the name it has, especially at MS it’s treated at par with dev.
    3. At MS, there’s scope for internal transfers between teams and roles.
    I’d like you to comment if my conclusions are correct and if I have made a good decision.
    I have another offer from Flextronics Software Systems in hand.
    Tushar Malhotra

  • http://totobogy.netfirms.com Tushar Malhotra

    Hi, I reached your blog while doing my research on Microsoft. Sorry for bothering but I’d be grateful if you could take some time and advise me.
    I am an engineering fresher (2006 passout) living in gurgaon and have landed an offer from Microsoft for SDE/T position. I was apprehensive about the ‘T’ tag in the beggining of my career but have finally decided to go for it after 2 weeks of research about the profile (mostly on net– blogs etc).
    What I have summed up is:
    1. SDE/t is not a bad profile and there’s considerable amount of development involved.
    2. Testing in itself is not as bad a domain as the name it has, especially at MS it’s treated at par with dev.
    3. At MS, there’s scope for internal transfers between teams and roles.
    I’d like you to comment if my conclusions are correct and if I have made a good decision.
    I have another offer from Flextronics Software Systems in hand.
    Tushar Malhotra

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