How did you get your first job after graduation?
I finished my degree in 4.5 years, graduating in December 2003. The economy was not great at the time and the computer industry was still recovering from the dot-com bust, so jobs were harder to come by. During the fall semester of my 4th year, ECS sent a mail out to students notifying us that Microsoft would be on campus for three days, Wednesday through Friday, doing interviews and that they had some open positions for which anyone could sign up. I thought Microsoft wouldn’t be interested in me – while I had previous internship experience at a different company, I didn’t have a 3.5+ GPA and the competition was so stiff – so I ignored it. That was on Monday. On Wednesday, ECS sent out a reminder, noting that there were still a few slots available. At that point, I figured the reminder was serendipitous so I signed up for a Friday slot, thinking that at a minimum it would be a good practice interview for a company known for tough, technical interviews. I spent the next two days after classes boning up on my programming skills so they’d be fresh in my mind. On Friday, I had an on-campus interview for the Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) internship role. About a week later, I received an email inviting me to fly to Seattle for a full round of interviews. I was thrilled!
The interview was scheduled for February; I remember that I had to take two exams early because they were during the same time. I spent the time up until then learning about software testing since I had never done it before and practicing my coding. I wanted everything to be comfortable in my mind so I could present myself and my skills well even if I was nervous. Finally, I landed in Seattle and went through a tough, but occasionally fun and thought-provoking, set of interviews. Afterward, I hung around Seattle, happy for the free trip if nothing else. Within a couple of weeks, I received a phone call offering me a summer internship at Microsoft. I accepted. The internship was excellent – very challenging since I was working on a real production service and very fun because Microsoft provides a lot of opportunities for interns to enjoy the area (and because I found a merry band of fellow Halo players on my team!). At the end of my internship, I did my final interview for a full-time position. I did well on the interview and had solid results on my internship evaluation, and landed the position. I started full-time immediately after my graduation and am still here six years later, enjoying it more and more every year.
What is the single largest programming disaster you've ever been a part of?
I’ve had my fair share of coding difficulties, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a true disaster.
What do you think the internet will look like in the future?
Life automation. I see the internet as a big enabler – it takes cool technology and elevates it to the next level. We already have computers in a number of places that were once unimaginable such as refrigerators, cars, or vacuum cleaners. As that continues to expand to other items in our lives, I think we will use the internet as a powerful remote control for these items, allowing us to run our lives complete complex tasks while we are out living our lives.
Mac or PC--and why?
I’m a PC, and not just because I work at Microsoft, honestly! I was actually never a Mac fan even when I was in school; the interface just does not suit me. Beyond that, I like PCs because I tend to customize both the hardware and software quite a bit and because I’ve always been a gamer and PCs have historically had better support for the games I was interested in playing.
Did you ever get tired of eating pizza?
There are so many interesting cuisines out there, so it’s fun to explore other tasty food options now that I’m out of school. Though I must admit that whenever I travel back home to Chicago, I always make time to pick up a stuffed pizza or a deep dish. …and I might have had Chicago pizzas mailed to me in Seattle a time or two!