
Microsoft needs Wizards: A 1984 Microsoft job posting - scommab
http://groups.google.com/group/net.jobs/msg/4f2cf440919eeda9
======
jgfoot
Mike Maples talks more about Microsoft back then:
(<http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/107465/1/oh387mm.pdf> ):

"""I can remember going to the first Microsoft Company picnic in 1988. There
were only two children. Microsoft had 1,800 employees and there were only a
couple of them that were married. You had all these young kids who weren't
married and were right out of school. IBM had conventional dress codes;
Microsoft - it was very much like a college campus. The only difference in how
they lived, the hours they kept and the way they dressed, between a college
campus and Microsoft was that Microsoft bought the equipment. They all wore
their shorts and half of them wore sandals or no shoes. Microsoft bought a lot
of T-shirts and things for them. There weren't set hours - the management
system was to let people pick or sign up for what they were going to do, and
it was up to them to do it. So there was very little management attention over
directing people or telling them what to do - it was a very empowered work
force. And my suspicion was that that was the way IBM was in the 1930s and
1940s. They were much more formal, because the time was much more formal in
terms of dress. But in terms of the ages and the attitudes and the mission the
people were on - I think it would be a lot the same."""

~~~
untog
I think it's an inevitable transition that Google is going through right now.
Probably Facebook, too.

~~~
sliverstorm
Perhaps it is as simple as a direct consequence of the average age at the
company?

~~~
greghinch
Yea, old people are boring and suck. Wait I just turned 30. Crap!

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irollboozers
I am by no means an old-school software guy, but I have distinct memories of
when my dad worked in emerging software companies. And more importantly, back
when Microsoft was 'cool'. It was like having free soda in the break rooms and
awesome company picnics was -the- status symbol of a fun career.

Now, people much more junior expect all of that, plus crazy workplaces, free
meals, free babysitting, free carwash, free haircuts, etc. I wonder what the
current entry level software engineer ad at Microsoft looks like. Which is
weird, at my school UW, they weren't even there at the CS career fair.
Meanwhile FB was there with free t-shirts, Google had a giant android costumed
guy waddling around, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. They all made it seem like you
weren't even applying for jobs, and you weren't even expected to actually have
to work.

Microsoft definitely helped define the techie dream workplace, even after they
got 'huge'. Why did that have to change?

~~~
nadam
"Now, people much more junior expect all of that, plus crazy workplaces, free
meals, free babysitting, free carwash, free haircuts, etc."

Junior or not, only a tiny percentage of people can get these perks. For
example google recieves 1 million CVs a year approximately 5000 of which get a
job offer (0.5%). (approximately 35% of those who are allowed to have a phone
interview are allowed to the onsite interviews and approximately 25% of the
'onsite-interviewed' people get a job offer.)

~~~
alapshah
That is totally true, but a very large percentage of those 1 million are
people who simply have no chance of getting the job. Google is seen as a hot
company and place to work for so it attracts a lot of resumes, much more than
microsoft ever was...

And they make it pretty darned easy to apply. There are some other interesting
numbers in this infographic - salaries and such:
<http://img.gtricks.com/2011/10/job-in-google.png>

~~~
Drbble
I realize my comment is redundant because you already said "infographic", but
that image is garbage. The salary numbers are incredibly misleading, since
they ignore stock or are an arbitrary sample.

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marcusf
It sounds like a fun place to be, and just reinforces that this industry seems
to endlessly spin around in circles.

I mean, when you read this and compare it to what you hear of MSFT today (via
Mini, for example), it's not far off to compare it with Google who seems to be
shifting from this to something more disciplined with Larry as the CEO.
Extrapolating to what might happen to Facebook isn't far off either.

~~~
petenixey
I know, I was thinking exactly the same thing as I read this.

I wonder which large companies have held out against this type of decay
through the decades and how they managed it.

~~~
nazar
Whether that indeed a decay is questionable.

Sony had its own approach to this(citing Yoshide Nakamura): _Our company
management felt that to prepare the company for the digital network era of the
21 century, it was important to have the most appropriate organizational
structure in place. That was the core reason why we created our new structure.
Sony is a large company now. Our worldwide consolidated sales are over $56
billion, with 170,000 employees, but in spirit we always try to be small
venture company. We want to maintain this, So when Mr.Nabuyuki Idei became
president in April 1995, he gave us two slogans: "Regeneration" and "Digital
Dream Kids." Thats the spirit of being small and going back to when we started
Sony in 1946. So we want to make Sony smaller. Instead of having this huge
corporation, he wants to organize Sony into four divisional companies so that
a small venture capital spirit can be brought into management_

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jdp23
Back in the 1980s, research showed individual offices for developers resulted
in significantly higher productivity. [Peopleware has a good chapter on this,
if I recall correctly.] This was a core part of MS culture until the
mid-2000s, when overcrowding led to office sharing.

I intereviewed at MS as I was graduating college in 1983. My interview loop
included Charles Simonyi and Steve Ballmer, who had just gotten a prerelease
of the Tandy Model 100 mentioned in the OP and demoed it to me in the
interview. It was definitely a programmer-centric world, in the best way; but
people I talked to also had a very strong business focus as well. I turned
down the job offer to go to grad school ... by the time I wound up there in
1999 after selling them my startup, it was a very different place.

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aurelianito
If I see a job posting with the exact same wording Today, I will apply for the
job. So much better than the standard "looking for a
(ruby|python|c|javascript) (rockstar|ninja)" than it makes me cry!

~~~
verelo
I hate the term rockstar, and i dont think ninja's are good
communicators...always sneaking about.

Seriously though, think of what a rockstar is like. High maintenance, on
drugs, performs for a short period of time then expects a high payout, goes
out late and misses gigs...i dont want a rockstar.

I want a WIZARD! I'm pretty sure wizards are reliable and old school...

~~~
wonderyak
Wizards are certainly never late.

In seriousness; all job postings should be written by a member of the
department hiring for the position.

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dlokshin
What struck me most is that the following was clearly a pride point of the
culture at MSFT:

"The company is owned (a key issue) and operated by software wizards: Bill
Gates and Paul Allen."

Not anymore. Company is now run by a professional bean counter brought into
that position by the former software whiz.

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thomasjoulin
"we never do anything stupid because some manager/MBA/suit-type has power
without knowledge". Sounds like Steve Ballmer, right ?

~~~
yuhong
This was back in 1984. I wonder what led Bill Gates to choose Ballmer as the
new CEO.

~~~
sriramk
Ballmer was back in the company then. People outside MSFT underestimate the
technical know how of SteveB - he ran release management for the first version
of Windows. He _understands_ software. He might be doing a terrible job the
last decade but that is not due to him being some 'MBA' stereotype.

Also - BillG really trusts Steve. They've worked together for over 25 years.

~~~
dragonquest
This is a really good point. Ballmer may not be the greatest CEO ever, but he
does understand Microsoft products and what engineering goes on behind them.
His interview in which he made fun of IBM wanting metrics like KLOC and
judging quality by that shows that he had some clue even back then (~12-13
years ago).

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krobertson
"Your work won't be canceled due to some political/financial upheaval"

Don't think that is true anymore.

Wasn't there a post by a former project manager of Silverlight a while ago?
While that may not be representative of Microsoft to that degree, I've worked
with enough former Softies to know politics play a big role. Especially in the
war between Office and Windows.

~~~
nazar
Can you elaborate about the war? I thought Office and Windows are kind of
Siamese twins, unable to survive without each other.

------
johnx123-up

       James Gordon Letwin (born July 2, 1952)is an American 
       software developer and one of the original twelve Microsoft
       employees.
    

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Letwin>

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mrspeaker
They had me at "private offices (as many with windows as topology permits)"
(assuming topology permits at least 1)

~~~
drostie
Microsoft is infinite: it has no walls, and therefore, no windows.

The Microsoft that can be known is not the eternal Microsoft. The wizards that
can whiz are not the eternal wizards.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
On the contrary: Microsoft is almost all windows, but they all look inward.

~~~
kabdib
Also, they put a lot of people in cubicals now. The short kind, where it's
impossible to get privacy, or quiet.

~~~
larsberg
Not the software development teams in Redmond, at least as of 2007, though
some of the support and administrative services certainly were. The goal was
to give all dev team members their own private office. Interns and the more
junior people (in terms of number of years at MSFT) are "doubled up" if there
are insufficient spaces, but it is generally considered a bad thing and
something management tries to minimize.

~~~
contextfree
I work in Xbox, regular employee developers still have private offices,
contractors (which I am) don't.

~~~
contextfree
It's lame to complain about being downvoted, but I'm genuinely curious why
this was downvoted - it seems like it's nothing that I'd expect to be
divisive, it's just blandly factual.

~~~
kabdib
... because it's not true :)

~~~
contextfree
Huh, it's true of all the people / places I've met / paid attention to, but I
haven't scoured the whole department so you're probably right.

------
mrspeaker
I thought I was reasonably savvy of old-school tech, but what is this type of
address? decvax!Microsoft!joannr

~~~
harrigan
I think it's a bang path: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP#Bang_path>

~~~
InclinedPlane
Yup. It's basically a route described as a list of hosts. One of the hosts is
actually on the internet proper, and then the message would be transferred to
each successive host along the way using whatever local links were available
(including dialup modems) using a store and forward protocol.

As dedicated internet access became more common UUCP became obsolete.

~~~
mahmud
We use it at work to collect point-of-sale data from our stores.

Don't ask me how it got there, I wasn't around when that happened, but yes,
UUCP.

~~~
spitfire
I implemented a UUCP network in 2001. It was still around because of some
legacy (SCO UNIX) systems which just couldn't be gotten rid of.

Fortunately, these things are much less common now that software costs are
essentially zero.

------
pjmlp
Yeah the good old days when everyone still wanted to work there (me included).

Lets see how many of the "good" companies of today will turn in future dark
side companies as Microsoft is usually associated nowadays.

~~~
Drbble
Eh, Google went evil, Facebook was chartered evil, Msft overflowed and is back
to good.

------
sauravc
<http://peteandcarol.com/msft.htm>

------
Maxious
Is rockstars the new wizards?

~~~
drats
Speculation: you could _easily_ get to the #1 spot on HN with a blog entitled
"From Wizards to Rockstars: what's wrong with the motivation of the current
generation of technologists".

~~~
InclinedPlane
Rockstars are not such a bad model to emulate for hackers. Most rockstars are
talented, passionate about their craft, spend at least a decade just honing
their abilities through constant practice, spend years grinding on their
projects in relative obscurity and poverty until they finally find something
that resonates with the public and/or gain enough exposure to attain
popularity and success after which they work even harder to capitalize on it
making art and experiences that stand the test of time and attain a
commensurate level of recognition, appreciation, and financial reward.

The cartoon image of rockstars as the idle rich with some inborn exceptional
talent or some luck of fate that allows them to attain a life of fame and
fortune with very little effort is, of course, a much less noble behavioral
model to want to emulate.

~~~
gaius
"Rockstar" in the software context is the politically correct way to say
"prima donna" (with all the positive and negative connotations thereof).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_donna>

~~~
InclinedPlane
In the software context it has both meanings, which is the source of conflict
over the term. An employer advertising they want "rockstar" programmers does
not intend to hire prima donna's, even though that's what they may end up
getting.

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leo79
I email my resumee to decvax!Microsoft!joannr. No response so far.

~~~
aurelianito
I wonder if joannr@microsoft.com would work.

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dsrguru
Being too young to remember a world without the Internet, I'm surprised to see
that the terms "venture capital" and "startup" were in vogue in 1984.

~~~
petercooper
Internet for the masses, perhaps, but that job posting is from a Usenet post
nonetheless :-)

I miss the Usenet of yesteryear, nothing now comes close, but even I was
surprised to look it up just now and see it started in 1980!

~~~
pferde
You might find <http://olduse.net> interesting, then.

~~~
petercooper
Oh no.. you might have just found me a new (old?) hobby! :-)

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verelo
Those who don't learn from history are destined to repeat it, given all the
startups that exist today i'm very glad people are reading this job posting.

Your cool company today can change significantly, and maybe thats ok...but it
is a little sad, i think you'd struggle to get a similar recommendation for MS
these days.

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postit
Back in that day they offered private offices, now you can barely have a place
to call your own.

~~~
dpark
They still put their SDEs, SDETs, and PMs in private offices. There are some
cubicles on the Redmond campus, but they are the exception, and I've never
talked to anyone who who had a cube.

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muyuu
I wonder if it's this person:
[http://www.classmates.com/directory/public/memberprofile/lis...](http://www.classmates.com/directory/public/memberprofile/list.htm?regId=34648741)

~~~
cpach
The message is posted by Gordon Letwin.

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CosmicShadow
How many of you heard Dire Straits in their head when you read that they had
Microwave ovens? I would even go so far as to assume that some rooms had
colour TVs.

~~~
blafro
with guitars playing on the mtv.

------
duxup
I think this Microsoft company is going to really take off.

