'Softie in question: Randall Boseman

Job title: Principal Test Manager - SDET - Office.com

Randall, what is hot in Office right now?  Can we expect more of Microsoft Office online and now with a mobile piece to the business?
Services. Nowadays it’s all about software + services. People work and switch between different devices (a pc at both home and the office, tablets, phone, browser) multiple times a day. We’ve got to allow them to be able to remain productive and have their work follow them seamlessly. I’d say, yes, there’s plenty coming in terms of innovation, platform integration and experience improvement - mobile will definitely be a part of that.

You are a great technology and diversity ambassador with The National Society of Black Engineers and more. Can you share with us why you chose Microsoft, Office, and the SDET discipline?
When I was finishing up at school, if you wanted to do serious software, MS was the place. The number of products, customers and the potential… wow! I still think that is the case. Microsoft is an awesome company. There are brilliant people here with a lot of passion and focus. 

The SDET discipline was interesting; no one does software quality like Microsoft. We are innovators in that space with our engineering approach, the investment in assisting technology and the commitment to quality. It’s very rewarding to have that kind of impact on a product.  SDETs hold the line. It’s a very empowering feeling. 

Office was a no brainer; great product; great people… very successful and committed to continuous improvement in all aspects from delivering the best software to hiring the best people… and not afraid of taking calculated risks to create the best work environment and shipping the most useful products.

Can you share with our audience some of the green field/creative work you have been able to do for Office?
I’ve been involved with a lot of stuff from engineering process to management improvements and hiring focuses. On the engineering side, my team has spent lots of energy around improving our delivery of bits to customers, internal and external. I’d say we’ve made a lot of progress there and have played around quite a bit with the balance of speed and quality. We’re not perfect, but we’ve learned a lot and grown tremendously as an organization.

You mentioned diversity above. I’ve had a hand in some of the many improvements in terms of how we source diverse talent and grow that talent within the organization: things from partnerships with universities as well as mentoring rings within the division. It’s been a lot of fun over the years.

As you perform your day to day job, do you have the opportunity to learn new things? How?
Yes. The equation is so dynamic with variables like schedules, deliverables, customers, employees, you have to be able to adapt quickly and try new things to solve new problems.

Ownership and Impact. Can you share with me personally what this means to you and what it means as an engineer working on Microsoft Office?
There is always a sense of pride when you work on a specific product, feature or set of features. Office is so essential to many peoples’ daily routines that you want to ensure that what you worked on is useful and helps rather than hurts people.

It’s a great feeling when a family member or friend is unsure about how to complete a task in the product and I can point them to Office.com. When they come back and say, “Whoa, that site is awesome... I bookmarked it” then I know that I’m doing something right. 

What responsibility do you feel to customers knowing your customer base uses your product daily in schools, homes, and business around the world?
It’s like I said… we aim to help people, so it’s a huge responsibility. There are tons of customers who need our software to perform their jobs. There’s a lot of pressure to get it right and a lot of scrambling to repair when we sometimes miss the mark. 

As we close this up, can you share with me one thing you want the rest of the world to know about Office that they might not already know?
OK, this may be obvious, but I think sometimes it's forgotten about by people outside of Microsoft: at Office, our job is to help people. We use our engineering skills to build better and better versions of our products so that people can be more productive. We love feedback, so if you’ve got thoughts/opinions - we want to hear them. The site, www.office.com, has several places for users to provide feedback that we comb through and attempt to address. 

Dear JobsBlog: 

If I take a job where I get unrelated experience will it make me a less-desirable candidate?

-Tangent Torn 

Read on to hear the answer from Microsoft Recruiter Kenji...

Dear Tangent Torn:

My advice in your case -- as it often is -- is subjective based on the situation. In an ideal world, taking a position with unrelated experience shouldn’t affect the experience you’ve previously obtained, or a recruiter’s perception of that experience. But, like anything, it all depends on the eye of the beholder.

Having said that, when I see a resume where the most recent position is not at all similar to the position I’m trying to fill, I have four immediate thoughts (assuming the overall experience still matches the requirements for what I’m looking for):

1. Why did this person make such a career change?

2. How long have they been in the position?

3. Why are they looking to change back?

4. What type of extra-curricular activities does this person engage in?

After considering these questions, I evaluate the change itself and how different it really is from the position of interest. Are there positive experiences that could have been gathered from the unrelated position? Does it still involve similar responsibilities, or is it completely wayward from the rest of the resume? Has the candidate gone out of his way to retain his edge, despite the unrelated job content? I recruit mostly for Software Development Engineers in Test, so naturally, I look for elements of design, coding and testing in the position -- even if it’s not the main component of the role.

I then look at the length of the tangent experience in comparison to the rest of the experience. If it’s a short duration (a few months), I’m more likely to look past it and more heavily weigh the prior experience. The greater the tangent and the greater the duration of the position, the more likely I am to assume that the other experiences have atrophied and will pass. Try to include evidence in your resume that this isn’t the case!

Still, I also consider how impressive the previous experience is. Try to understand that I only have a few minutes at most to review each resume, so I’m looking for elements in the resume that pop. What is there in the previous experience that makes this candidate equal to or better than someone similar without the tangent experience? Does the candidate show a strong history of being a top performer? Has he or she gone above and beyond in their last position to drive results and impact their project? Is the new position the only outlier?

My overall suggestion is to emphasize the important experience in your resume, and make sure it stands out and represents you as you want to be viewed. It doesn’t hurt to include items in your resume that aren’t part of work either. If you have related hobbies or relevant project work that you’re doing, don’t be afraid to include that in your resume! This is good advice in general, but becomes even more important if your current work experience is outside of your normal career path. Personally, I really like it when candidates include information on the types of projects they do outside of work, and the type of work they enjoy. For me, it shows passion and a drive to attain goals in spite of other challenges present.

-Kenji

JobsBlog Rewind: this is one of our more popular posts and was originally published in 2009.

Among all sorts of other fun, games, learning, work and play, Microsoft's 2010 Interns had the opportunity to partake in a number of competitions. Entertainment & Devices hosted a competition that pitted the best and the brightest against each other to design the best new Windows Phone 7 app.

The 1st place winning team created a new app for the Windows Phone called, "Headliner." Check out video highlights Headliner below and then read on to hear insights from the winning team of José Arriaga Maldonado, Roger Pincombe, Aaron Schultz and Chris Cortes - in their own words.

Can you tell us a little more about the Headliner app, beyond what we've seen in the video clip?
Headliner is an easy-to-use tool for finding and viewing streams of online data by way of RSS feeds. Through communication with a variety of web services, we allow users to search for a topic of interest, browse feeds related to the topic and save them into a subscription list, read individual articles in two different visual modes (the original article, right in a web browser or a clean image-and-text-only version), and even post their finds through email, SMS, or Twitter. The application supports integration with a Google Reader account, follows the WP7 Metro design, and provides intuitive navigation throughout.
-Aaron Schultz

Tell us about the Windows Phone intern competition.
The competition was a great opportunity to create a cool application for Windows Phone 7 and be recognized for it. It allowed me to be creative and explore ideas for mobile apps outside of my normal role as an intern. I am an adamant RSS feed reader, so I was thrilled to have the chance to create an RSS reader for this exciting platform and make some good friends in the process.
-Roger Pincombe

What was the process of creating the app and working with the group of other interns?
The most difficult part of creating such a complex and full-featured app was the delegation of the work. The application had many interconnected parts and it was necessary to structure the work in such a way that each developer had as little dependence on the others as possible. With only a two-week time period to complete the project, each member had to be able to work on the project during their own time, generally after working a full day in the office. It was amazing to see how capable the other interns were and how knowledgeable they were about the services and technologies we used. Each teammate had their own roadblocks to overcome and it was great to have a team that could support each other and provide expertise in the areas of Silverlight design, web services, Google API’s and RSS feed structures. We had to work at a breakneck pace, but it was a lot of fun to work with a team who was just as committed as I was to creating a useful application for the Windows Phone 7 platform.
-Chris Cortes

What did your internship teach you about Microsoft?
Working as an intern for Microsoft was one of the greatest experiences of my life. One of the main reasons for this is that there's something really special about Microsoft itself. That is: Microsoft totally redefines teamwork. It doesn't matter if you are just an undergraduate; everyone in there, no matter how important or smart they are, will look at you as one of their kind. After all, we all share one common goal: we want the project to be successful.
 
Working with other interns is especially encouraged. Microsoft offers different opportunities for interns to work on a project of their own as a team. The Windows Phone 7 contest was just one of many. This is a really enjoyable experience because not only do you have full control on how you want the project to be done, but you also get to learn a lot of things about engineering projects, about your fellow interns and, especially, about yourself. 
-José Arriaga Maldonado

I recently participated in a job group panel and was asked for my interview tips. As I answered the question, I realized that I've come up with a whole bunch of additional suggestions since I last wrote about interviews for JobsBlog.

The first thing isn't a tip, so much as a philosophy of interviews: when faced with an interview, it is important to recognize that the process serves a dual purpose.

1) Interviews gives us a chance to find out whether or not you can contribute to the company, add value to your team and do the duties that are listed in the job description. This is the obvious purpose of an interview.

2) An interview is also a chance for YOU to interview the team to find out if it is a place where you want to work, a role that you want to take and a manager and team with whom you will "fit in."

It is imperative that you remember this second purpose. Interviewers will almost always open the floor to the interviewee at the end of the session to ask THEM questions. So be prepared!

Next? Think about what you love and do NOT love about your current or most recent position. Then come up with a list of at least 5 questions that specifically focus on those areas. WRITE THEM DOWN and take the list with you to your interview.  Usually, by the time you get the opportunity to ask questions, you have been poked, prodded, grilled and are pretty spent.  Writing down the questions you want to ask is just a quick reminder of the things you need to find out for YOURSELF.

Next?  Make a list of at least 5 things that you are REALLY good at and how those things could be important to the company, the team and the role for which you are interviewing. Then work those things in at the end of your interview so you are leaving the interviewer with positivie thoughts about you and your abilities. 

For example - if you are really good at working across teams, bringing people together and driving agreement on certain things… you could say “I think I am really good at cross-group collaboration because (list your specific examples) and it seems that these things could be very important to this role. How do you (interviewer) think this might help in being successful in this role?

It gives you the opportunity to talk about your strengths as they relate to the position AND it leaves the interviewer with positive thoughts of you as you walk away from that session. 

Try it!

Have you ever wondered what fields of study are hot right now in the world of technology?  Or maybe you’re starting to think about declaring your major and you’re looking for some real world guidance?

It is worth thinking beyond a traditional Computer Science degree or even an Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (EECS) program. Microsoft is hiring people with unique backgrounds, some that are new with the inception of the Cloud, web services and the amazing scale at which the industry is operating (Exabyte anyone?).

The following is my list of the Top Three hottest academic areas for a future career in tech:

Data Mining/Machine Learning/AI/Natural Language Processing 
All of these fields help us sift through and organize huge amounts of information or data. When you apply your knowledge in these areas to a challenging problem in the online space, you know that you are working at a scale that is just immense.  It’s much easier said than done.  If you have a passion for this area and have a technical background there are a multitude of open positions that might hold a long-term career for you.  With the move to the cloud and the sheer amount of information on the web, this area of expertise will continue to be in great demand. Microsoft has a great need for both people interested in the research space and the applied space which is very refreshing.

Business Intelligence/Competitive Intelligence
The ability to see trends, make sense of data to a business audience and help to understand your customers requires a special person. Someone with a mix of engineering, BI/CI experience and a business mindset can take this field to the next level. You will help increase any employer’s bottom line and be able to provide organized data that is extremely valuable to any business. You can help drive business decisions and help your internal audience understand what the data is telling or showing you. 

Analytics/Statistics – specifically Web Analytics, A/B Testing and statistical analysis
All of these subjects are offshoots of traditional degrees in CS and mathematics. They all apply to the online world we live in and will also be in great demand as we continue to monetize the web. Retailers, web services, and advertisers will need people in these fields as they try to get the most for their advertising money. As we continue to see the dollar amounts spent for online advertising worldwide, these fields will be hot and we will see online advertising change over time as a result of these positions. 

If these fields interest you and you want to find out what some of these jobs really entail, visit our website and search on the terms above to get a more detailed look at the positions. These fields are very HOT and looking long term, the demand will be just that much greater in these areas.

'Softie in question: Tony Menard

Job title: Xbox Games Intern - University of Michigan, Class of '11

Why did you decide to intern with Microsoft and not with a different tech company?
This was actually my third internship with Microsoft.  I've chosen to intern with the company because it's a very well-respected leader and innovator in the technology industry. 

The products MS develops are used by millions of people every day. That being said, I know that the work I do will impact a large number of these individuals. I've also been given the opportunity to live "every kid's dream" as my last two internships were as a Software Development Engineer in Test for the Games Test Organization of Microsoft Game Studios (also known as a VIDEO GAME TESTER)! 

Microsoft is one of a very few companies that have a 5-star intern program. The company never ceases to impress me with how well it treats its interns.

How did you feel about the type of work you did as an intern?
I think my intern responsibilities were both challenging and impactful. Throughout the summer, I took part in the testing of three different Xbox 360 titles.  Furthermore, not only did I design the overarching test plan and generate build verification tests for a tool that will be used by my entire organization, I was also responsible for designing a targeted test specification and cases for a major release of the tool as well. 

Did you get a chance to get to know other interns?
The company-wide intern events including the Cirque du Soleil performance, Mt. Rainier hike, Intern Day of Caring, Puzzle Day and division-specific intern events like the BBQ with Phil Spencer and the Kinect demo with Kudo Tsunoda gave me plenty of opportunities to meet new interns as well as respected leaders in the industry. I was also featured in the web series "My Intern Life 2" this summer, so people outside the company can get a chance to know me on more of a personal level as they follow me throughout my internship.

What was one of your best memories shared with other interns?
One of my favorite memories with other interns would have to be the Kooza, Cirque du Soleil performance. Microsoft organized a private showing of the performance just for us interns this summer and the experience was truly amazing! I've never seen anything like it before.
 
Tell me about the Intern Social Coordinators and how they assisted with the cohesion of the intern group.
Intern Social Coordinators are full-time employees that organize events for groups of approximately 10 interns. My ISC scheduled whitewater rafting on the Wenatchee river, WhirlyBall, movie night at a nearby theater and dinner in Seattle (just to name a few things) throughout the course of my internship this summer. These events provided me the opportunity to meet and bond with a bunch of other interns across the company that I may have never met otherwise.

Tell me the highlights of going on the Wenatchee River. 
I had a great time on the Wenatchee River with approximately 30 other MS interns and full-time employees. The weather was perfect. I shared a raft with five other University of Michigan interns and our instructor.  At one point during the trip, we ended up hitting a rock in the middle of the river and our instructor fell out of the raft. You'd think it would be the other way around (i.e. one of us interns falling out of the raft) but we actually had to paddle over save the instructor. That was a memorable experience, no doubt.

As an intern, what did you learn about the culture at Microsoft?
The people at Microsoft are very passionate about what they do. It's exciting to jump into a project with a bunch of intelligent individuals who are striving for a common goal. I was never afraid to ask my co-workers questions because I not only felt that I was important to the team, but that the project I was assigned was both impactful and meaningful as well.

For many candidates who come to the Microsoft campus, it’s their first time visiting Seattle. When I ask them what they think about it so far, there are two first impressions that I always hear.

The first thing I frequently hear is, "Everyone here is so nice." Seattleites give off a general vibe of being laid-back, good natured people.  Everyone feels a connection to the community. 

The second comment that I hear (and even more common) is, "It’s SO green here." While Seattle has a reputation for being a rainy city, it gives us lush, green landscapes that keep their vitality through the drier months of summer.

Combined, these things are what make the Pacific Northwest the ‘place to be’ in the summer. Add to that a constant steam of festivals, concerts, outdoor movies, local markets and street fairs, and you can see what summers in Seattle are truly special. 

Once summer hits, everyone comes out of the woodwork to enjoy the fun. We just finished celbrating SeaFair... probably the most popular summer festival in Seattle. SeaFair is a boat-lovers dream! People take their boats, their friends’ boats, or rented boats and head to Lake Washington for a weekend full of air shows and hydroplane races.

But don’t worry, if that’s not your cup of tea, there are plenty of other activities for you. You can rent kayaks and take a day-trip around the bays and lakes. You can hike to a waterfall. You can sip iced coffee at a street side cafe in Capitol Hill. You can catch a ball game at Safeco Field or get your picture taken in front of the Fremont Troll (a lesser known local treasure)! 

And if that’s not enough, the popular Gorge Amphitheater on the Columbia River is a short road trip away for a weekend full of music, camping and fun in the sun. There are endless possibilities for adventure.

Though summer is starting to wind down, there’s still time to fit in a few local activities in the August heat. If you’re in the area, check out the Bumbershoot festival. The beautiful weather lasts far beyond Labor Day in Washington State, so you’ll find plenty of opportunities to get outside and enjoy what Seattle has to offer.

Until next time, enjoy your summer!

Kelly

All nine Junior Class women at Brown University's Department of Computer Science interned at Microsoft this summer.

Intern Nell Elliott interviewed with Google and Apple as well, but chose to intern at Microsoft because she was able to meet the people she'd be working with in advance. Even if she had met her future coworkers at Apple and Google, she says it would be difficult to think she could enjoy them more than the team she ended up with at Microsoft, the Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU).

"I worked on real stuff," Elliott says. "My team treated me like an adult. They took me seriously. It's more like you just started working here than being an intern." She adds her team at Microsoft is relaxed, funny, and quirky, but also clearly dedicated to their work.

Intern Tess Avitabile felt the same way about her team. "I wasn't expecting people on my team to be such goofballs, and I'm so excited about it," she says. "They were able to get so much done while also having time to pull pranks, such as inserting David Hasselhoff songs into presentations. They are so competent and so silly. It was great."

After spending a summer working in Redmond (as well as hiking, biking, barbecuing, and hanging out), the women have a clearer picture of what they want for themselves.

Megan Hugdahl says her internship gave her a lot of respect for the "complexity of Microsoft products," and Lu Zeng says she has a new-found love for Visual Studio.

Avitabile said she had dismissed the idea of working at a technology company because she didn't think she was capable of it.

"My internship has been an incredible confidence booster, being able to dive in and understand complex systems and present myself as an adult to people," Avitabile says. "This summer has actually made me reconsider—it definitely seems reasonable now."

Read the original article with additional interviews and insights: here.

The #1 question I am asked by young people looking to work in the games and entertainment industry: “How do I break in?” 

I’ll give you a hint…it’s not by promising to clean our toilets or bragging about how much time you spend pwning newbs on Halo.

Breaking in takes hard work and commitment. If you are a 17-year-old and reading this, I hope that you are submitting your college applications. Because, the best way to start on your path is to graduate with a 4-year degree. Yes, yes…I realize that there are stories of people who didn’t go to college but have had successful careers and made a bazillion dollars. That’s all fine and dandy and very true. But, I consider them the exceptions. Often, they are ridiculously brilliant OR they have put in a tremendous amount of effort to accomplish their goals. Effort that others put into college. So…if you have the means to go to college, do it! 

As for degrees: I recommend Computer Science degrees for everyone (producers and level designers included) except artists, who need to focus on their artistic endeavors and hone their creative skills with an Arts degree.

I am often suspicious of game degrees. They develop few practical skills and spit people out in 2 years (or less) into a competitive field full of other amateur, wanna-be designers.

Next…if you want to work in entertainment, you need to spend time working on entertainment projects. Very rarely will a company hire someone without some kind of relevant experience. 

I already know what you’re asking: “How do I get experience if nobody will hire me without it?” Simple…take it upon yourself to gain that experience. Consider some contract work. Call up an agency that contracts with the companies you’re interested in and do a few short term projects. Guess what…now you have experience. Also…you can do things on your own. One of my favorite hires within Xbox LIVE didn’t come from a games background. She worked for the state of Idaho…or Iowa. One of those. She caught my eye by sending me her website which had samples of some personal gaming projects on which she'd worked. It was enough to convince me to put her in front of my managers and BAM! She is now part of the LIVE Services team.

So, in short…you gotta earn it. It’s not going to be handed to you. And, despite the fact that you consider your version of the Halo 3 ending to be superior to what Bungie did, you are not automatically going to be at the top of the list.

If you’re interested in learning more, consider attending come of the annual game conferences like GDC or GamesCon. You can learn a lot. And, network with a lot of people that are hiring. 

During a recent work trip to Washington, DC, I found myself admiring the beauty of the US Capitol Building: the paintings on the ceiling, the frieze around the dome and more. It is an impressive intersection of engineering, history and art.

I wondered aloud if – with all of the cuts to arts education – future generations would have the context to fully appreciate and understand such a monument.

A gentleman on my tour replied curtly, “Arts no longer matter. There are more critical things to teach in schools.”

Unfortunately, this assumption is all too common. People believe that our businesses and economy can thrive solely on engineering and hard sciences.

As a recruiter for Microsoft, I must disagree – strongly. For starters, the arts teach creative problem-solving, teamwork and the ability to view things from different perspectives. These are key skills for success in a diverse workplace like Microsoft.

Moreover, Microsoft is so much more than just a technology company with engineering jobs.

We hire a lot of artistic people who use technology to perform creative jobs. If you think about games like Halo, or products like Zune, Bing, Kinect and MSN, it becomes obvious that we need artistic and creative people. Otherwise, we'd still be looking at a black screen and a flashing green cursor like in the MS-DOS days. I, for one, do not want to go back to the pre-GUI world. 

A quick look at the Microsoft Careers website shows over 100 jobs for people with a creative skill set. Xbox and Game Studios need people with backgrounds in gaming, film and theater. We hire matte painters, lighting artists, concept artists, FX artists… to name just a few. We have tech writing, content writing and user experience jobs that need people with strong verbal and visual arts skills. We need producers who know how to take a game from storyboard to launch. These job requirements are more likely to seek a degree in art, animation, communications, English, journalism, theater or graphic arts than they are to ask for a computer science or engineering degree.

Another way to phrase my initial question would be: without arts in the schools, how will the future game designers and UX people discover their artistic strengths and decide to pursue a creative career so they can someday work for Microsoft?

If you are an artistic/creative person looking for a job at Microsoft, you can visit the Careers page and do the same search I did. Use the terms "artist OR creative" and you can review the jobs. Or use the Job Category and chose "Software Engineering: Creative" or "Software Engineering: Content Publishing".