Generation Y was still attracted to Microsoft. I grew up on Windows and played Xbox. Great signing bonus and a good first manager helped, and first year was amazing.
Yet, leaving the company this last Friday I reflected on the second year, and what happened, and what could make the company better, and will try to summarize on 3 things.
1) It is the manager! My first manager: 15 years veteran. The guy could code. Had interest in my career. I longed for the 1:1s! When the guy talked about old times, you learned from those stories. The guy knew his stuff, and yet was humble. Every 1:1 finished with him asking "Do you have feedback for me?" And when he left my team and later Microsoft, in just 1 year I experienced 3 terrible managers. Non-technical, wanting status reports all the time, always talking about themselves. Now, I dreaded the 1:1s.
2) Besides the managers, you want great peers. My first manager not only assembled a great team by hiring well and making everyone accountable: he actively removed the bad apples. After he left, team members were spread over bad managers, and we could all see how much he shielded us from non-sense. Now, we all saw incompetent people doing nothing, producing status reports that didn't match reality, and getting rewarded for that.
3) Leadership is not repeating catchphrases. I never saw another CEO besides Satya. Yet, my first manager would tell stories of how they had a founders's mentality, and passion. Meanwhile, Satya has no passion. The town hall meetings are pathetic. He clearly gets annoyed answering questions that don't come from Yammer. And who makes those Yammer questions?
I loved my project, and could see a lot of other interesting projects st Microsoft. Yet, the review system doesn't help: after my initial bonus I never got a review reward even close. The market is hot now, and I got far better offers outside. Not being stuck due to visas or family issues, I see no reason to stay at Microsoft under such bad managers. Don't want to learn what brought them up. Don't want to become them. Don't want to get people like my first manager out of the company. By the way: I saw he posted a position in the new company, applied and got in! Thanks Microsoft: I learned why people follow great managers!
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A year after i left, he too left and went to amazon. Wondering what his engineer theory is now a days.