I'm taking a break from my academic career as a
Software Engineering student at
Rochester Institute of Technology and, for the next 3 months, will be interning at Microsoft as a
Program Manager in the Mobile Devices Product Group. Specifically, my role involves working on the Pocket PC and Smartphone SDKs (which is what 3rd party developers use to create applications for the Windows Mobile platform). For those who watched our coverage of the numerous things announced at PDC, you know that this is a truly exciting time to be in such a position. And for those familiar with the weather in Rochester, you know that this is the perfect time of year to move far far away. 8) My week began with New Employee Orientation where, after taking care of paperwork, we were briefed about policies and benefits. Then Bill Gates came in to give a speech and do Q&A (what an awesome surprise!). I won't go into what he said but I will tell you this: nobody left the room uninspired. Apparently, it is very rare that BillG comes to these orientations (though there is always at least one of the Senior Executives there) so I was pretty lucky. And the luck didn't stop there: somehow I also ended up scoring a corner window office with a killer view of the Cascade Mountains in the distance.I can't even begin to express how awesome it feels to be here in Redmond surround by so many brilliant and enthusiastic people who sincerely care about their products and the customers who use them. While I definitely won't be able to discuss the technical things that are going on here, I am hoping to use SPT as a way of expressing that human side which is often concealed by the company's size. How to do that is still up in the air though since my primary goal is to not get fired.
To our readers at Microsoft: I'd like to make the most of this opportunity and meet as many people here as possible to get a feel for how things work throughout the company. If you are interested in meeting up for lunch some time, please drop me an
email.