

You can go to the bathroom whenever you want at Microsoft - SwellJoe
http://www.microspotting.com/2009/02/zeke

======
SwellJoe
What I find striking is that someone working at a gas station, and with
apparently no formal CS education, could get hired and eventually become a
lead developer, at Microsoft. Google would _never_ hire someone like Zeke
(they might have in the past, but not current Google); without a degree from a
"top-tier school", you don't even get past the first steps of the interview
process.

Say what you will about IE (Zeke is apparently lead on the project), Microsoft
actually does have a lot of good software developers working there. I can't
imagine someone would rise to a lead role on a major product like IE without
being pretty damned good. And, there probably is something to hiring really
passionate people over someone with a lot of qualification who could take it
or leave it...companies like Google that weed out first based on school and
grades, might just be missing out on a huge class of talent.

I can think of a few well-known examples of this (jwz, most of the 8-bit game
developers, John Carmack, etc.). Not to say the guy responsible for IE is
necessarily in that class...but, nonetheless, there's an awful lot of great
developers who never went to a good school for CS.

~~~
kragen
_Google would never hire someone like Zeke (they might have in the past, but
not current Google); without a degree from a "top-tier school", you don't even
get past the first steps of the interview process._

You're wrong. Let me add one more anecdote: I know someone who dropped out of
a second- or third-tier tech school after five years of moderate GPA, in 2000.
He started work at Google three months ago. Yes, in engineering.

~~~
kragen
The person is Ben Sittler; the tech school is New Mexico Tech, which although
very good is not at the same level as MIT, CMU, or ETH.

------
BrentRitterbeck
I read the title and laughed. I laughed because I worked at a major U.S. bank,
and if you went to the bathroom during an unscheduled break, people wondered
where you were.

------
pg
I had to check whois to be sure this wasn't a parody. What are these guys
thinking?

~~~
Elepsis
Disclosure: I work at Microsoft.

Look, why is it so strange that Microsoft has a blog profiling people around
the company who like their jobs? Are we supposed to cut ourselves every
morning because we work for the "evil empire"? I don't understand why you
think the site is somehow ridiculous, evil or insane. You know, of the 90,000+
people Microsoft employs, most of them actually like what they do.

Astroturfing implies that something is not true. Are you seriously arguing
that people who work for Microsoft cannot _possibly_ actually enjoy it?

~~~
pg
The idea is fine. It's the implementation that makes it seem like a parody.

I honestly did have to check whois. When I first saw this, I thought it was
someone making fun of Microsoft.

The ironic thing is, if it had been a parody, I'd have killed it, because it
was (or would have been) so heavy handed. But since it's really from
Microsoft, it's on-topic, because it's an interesting data point about how
completely the company has lost its way.

~~~
SwellJoe
Microsoft has always had a tendency to "not get it" on a grand scale, when it
comes to stuff like this (advertising, social media, demo and marketing
videos, etc.).

It goes back many years:

<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7107499611244156089>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZvhPGXrg0g>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A_Kkb9w5bw>

They're all pretty uncomfortable to watch, and are like a parody of someone
trying to be funny.

However, I don't think Microsoft not getting it is sufficient reason for us to
ignore them. They've done _something_ really right somewhere along the way.
I'm not sure exactly what it was, or if they're still doing it, but perhaps
staring at it from multiple angles will help figure it out.

~~~
enneff
It just shows how culture always trickles down from the top. Gates, Ballmer,
etc are all tremendous dorks, and their dorkiness pervades the Microsoft
brand. I suppose Steve Jobs' smartest move was recognising the importance of
style, and having faith in his own good taste.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
Jobs is a huge dork. You just haven't actually looked at the guy. Black
turtlenecks, jeans, and white sneakers? Really?

~~~
SwellJoe
Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance.

------
sfphotoarts
I've worked with some terrible programmers that have Stanford CS degrees, and
one of the best programmers (CTE..) I've ever worked with also has a degree
from Stanford CS. It's just not a very good metric to determine skill.

A university education demonstrates a commitment to studying for a reasonable
period of time, which in itself is something valuable, however, anyone that
has had more than a decade of industry relevant experience _is self taught_.
After that time, what you learned in school pales into insignificance compared
with what you (hopefully) have learned on the job (and in side projects).

The computing landscape changes every decade or so. The last one has seen
dynamic languages come to the forefront and be actually used outside of school
projects. And of course web development is completely new. It bought with it
an entirely new sense of scale (think of Facebook's image serving needs, or
Google's pagerank number matrix math)

I'm glad for Zeke and I'm glad for MSFT that they have hiring criteria that
make sense. People have wrongly in my opinion written them off in favor of the
new hotness (GOOG), but I am a little reluctant to be so hasty. While its true
that I haven't used (or needed) a MSFT product for a while, I am also not
naive enough to realize that a software developer in San Francisco isn't
really typical of a computer user, when averaged over the globe.

------
RK
From the Microspotting About page (which is a Microsoft page):

 _Oh and PS: You might notice that I use all manner of social media sites like
Flickr and YouTube on Microspotting. You might notice that I publish the site
using an open source content management system. Before you get all “ZOMG,
TRAITOROUS MICROSOFTIE!!!11!1!!” understand this: I don’t buy into the idea
that working at Microsoft means you can’t use competitors’ tools. In fact, I
think that’s the best way to stay in touch with a constantly shifting, super
exciting industry. I’m a Web 2.0 geek, so I use whatever tools interest me at
the moment — regardless of who makes them. Working at Microsoft does not equal
flunky._

~~~
asciilifeform
> Working at Microsoft does not equal flunky.

I have been told that Microsoft employees are discouraged (perhaps even
forbidden) from contributing to Free Software projects. Can you refute this?

~~~
ms_dev
Depends. But pretty much, no, I can't.

Contributing to Microsoft-owned open source projects is acceptable, in some
cases. A small number of products are run in an open-source manner within
Microsoft, and actively recruit contributers inside the company.

I don't want to talk too much about internal policy -- I'm sure the legal
office (LCA) wouldn't appreciate me pontificating about how cracked-out I
think their opinions on F/OSS are -- but in general, 'forbidden' would be a
good description, both for contributing and just reading code. There are
exceptions, but they have to go up several levels of management and be
directly work-related to be approved. (I think MSR is a different world,
though.)

Honestly, most devs I know are too slammed with work as it is to keep up with
a large-scale F/OSS project after hours. Every once in a while you get enough
of a breather+motivation do small hobby projects and keep up with new
technology.

The F/OSS restriction is the #1 thing I don't like about my job, but honestly,
it's about the only thing.

------
cesare
The wikipedia page about astroturfing lacks a screenshot.

Just saying.

------
Ygor
It's all about you. You are not a good programmer because you went to a good
school, or because you started learning on your own. You are a good programmer
because you are a good programmer. It's a combination of traits that the
individual aquires during all the points in life before the one in which we
declare him a "good programmer". For every self-thought good programmer, you
can name one with a degree. And vice versa.

The point of this article is not the way you learn to program. The point is
how the company attracted someone and inspired him to fullfill his potential,
and in the end be a true asset to the company. The right to go to the toilet
whenever you want is just a simple simbol for a good working environment. A
song of a caged nightingale is never his best.

------
durbin
I'd be less embarrassed to say I worked at a gas station than that I was
Principal software developer on Internet Explorer

------
webwright
For all of those folks who are saying IE is a piece of junk, you should
consider:

1) IE is a REALLY stable/reliable piece of software. I don't think IEs
failings are remotely technical. They are the strategic choices they made. 2)
This guy is an high-level engineer. At Microsoft, I believe that gives him a
seat at the table in terms strategic decisions, but it's a big table.

------
b-man
But you can't open source anytime :)

~~~
cesare
Sadly, the website is registered to Microsoft (and Copyright Microsoft
Staffing Marketing)it is a Wordpress blog running on Apache!

Edit: I don't mean to offend people in this community working for Microsoft.
But this is one of the best example of why I hate marketing.

Visiting the website convinced me even more that using the open-source LAMP
stack and an open-source CMS is easier than using Microsoft technologies. Even
if you don't consider the additional costs because they would have been used
their own products.

------
cesare
Just check the copyright at the bottom of the page.

------
voidpointer
Zeke has his own blog too:
<http://blogs.msdn.com/freeassociations/default.aspx> It's referenced from the
IEBlog at [http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/12/06/file-uris-in-
win...](http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/12/06/file-uris-in-windows.aspx)

------
tybris
The best programmer I ever knew had no CS degree. The best engineer I ever
knew did.

~~~
jamesbritt
"The best engineer I ever knew did."

Had a CS degree?

------
endtime
This article is pretty dumb. I am working at Microsoft this summer, and there
are plenty of great things to say about the place. Being able to go to the
bathroom whenever I want isn't one of them.

------
sailormoon
Flagging this transparent marketing crap.

If you cannot get a job where you can go to the bathroom whenever you want,
here's a tip: switch countries, because the one you are in is fucked.

------
korch
As much as IE belongs in the bowels of software hell, and as much as Microsoft
completely missed the boat for the Internet and for the open-source software
movement, kudos to this guy. I'm much the same way--took a job right after
high school doing bottom-feeder ISP tech support knowing absolutely nothing,
started reading everything I could get my hands on about computers,
networking, programming, and ended up being a pretty damned good software
engineer.

Fuck CS college degrees, they're worthless--give me the autodidact guy who
learned it all on his own anyday. And no, I'm not some guy who doesn't know CS
--anyone want me to hand-hold you through the steps to derive the existence of
NP-Complete problems in Cooke's original proof? Or how about let's implement a
red-black tree entirely from memorizing the algorithm?

Odd that Microsoft's culture has always followed the hacker ethos, caring only
about how smart and capable you are to let you work for them, yet all of their
software is crap, while Google will only stoop to maybe consider you if you
have a CS degree from Stanford. Whether Google's software is all crap too, we
need another 3-5 years to settle that decision.

~~~
tybris
I guess "making an argument" is one of the things people learn in university.
:-P

------
onreact-com
I don't work for a corporate moloch and I can pee all day if I want.

------
Readmore
So now we know why IE sucks so bad.

------
huhtenberg
It's nice to be able to put a face to IE6.

------
nazgulnarsil
not to be a dick to the true self taught gurus out there, but maybe IE
wouldn't be such a pile of crap if the principle software developer wasn't
someone who learned CS reading books on the bus. :p

~~~
jgrahamc
I think you make a big mistake with your comment.

There's nothing wrong with self-taught. Many great scientists and inventors
have been self-taught (eg Michael Faraday).

Also, I'm the opposite of his guy. I went to Oxford. Studied mathematics and
computer science and stayed and got a doctorate. I would suck at leading IE
development.

As a hiring manager I look at what people can do, and then I look at their
education. I do this becausesome of the best engineers I've worked with
majored in non-CS/EE.

BTW I am hiring Java developers in London.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
I knew I would catch shit for this comment because by and large CS can't be
learned any way other than on your own. the field changes too fast for the
schools to keep up. being a software developer is an exercise in being a
lifelong student.

I couldn't resist though. after all the hundreds of hours I've spent dealing
with IE related issues, the lead dev learned CS on the bus. It's just too
poetic.

~~~
jimbokun
I don't think the problem is the talent of the IE team. I think the problem is
they disbanded the IE team for several years. At least, that's what I remember
reading in the Founders at Work chapter on Blake Ross. In other words, it was
an explicit management decision to not make IE better. In that situation,
there is literally nothing the developers can do.

~~~
kragen
Not _literally nothing_. I guess you haven't read "The Graphing Calculator
Story":

    
    
        I was frustrated by all the wasted effort, 
        so I decided 
        to uncancel my small part of the project. 
        I had been paid to do a job, 
        and I wanted to finish it. 
        My electronic badge 
        still opened Apple's doors, 
        so I just kept showing up.
    

<http://www.pacifict.com/Story/>

