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Ryan Pedersen - MSFT
Been there for 11 years.
Role includes:
Title: Principal Software Engineering Manager
Life-long technologist (TRS Color-80).
Worked with a guy named Howard, developing software for 3D Graphics cards.
Internal team!
No college degree!
Experience with a couple startups, one successful, others not so much.
5-interviews with MSFT before getting hired...but not hired until after 5th interview.
Received call about XBox team opening. Turns out XBox was closely tied to ECommerce. Ryan was in to finances as a vendor, started pursuing full-time employment.
Sometimes there are opportunities that don't 100% fit your professional desires, but find ways to leverage that experience that will fold-in to future goals.
Ryan made his intentions known: When he was a vendor for MSFT he started advertising that he wanted to become a full-time employee, and he found help making that happen.
Ryan is a hiring manager and has 21 engineers in 3 teams he manages.
Networking helped Ryan move his SWE skills to move into the positions he has had and is in now.
Is always looking for candidates and regularly hires from Code Fellows.
Looking for people to demonstrate the skills through your experiences in tech in the past.
Looking for new-entries into tech, that are passionate, coding every day, leaning in to the space.
How is a day-in-the-life of a jr dev in MSFT, and your team?
Mentorship at MSFT?
What does the learning ladder (opportunities) look like at MSFT? There are core values that MSFT hold that support learning and growing:
Stay marketable. Remember that plans can change, and as the owner of your profession, so that your experiences and skills are marketable.
If you find yourself doing tasks that are reactive and/or not in line with engineering and growing your career and skills, then maybe something needs to change and action should be taken.
How is what I do in my personal life, helping to build my competencies in technology and professionalism for my career?
Apply for jobs that interest you not just on the written "requirements".
If I understand a domain, why am I not writing software to help service it, or make it better?
What language should I be concentrating on? Interview-wise it might not matter specifically - what an interviewer could be looking for is the desire to figure it out. A quitter attitude will not get the job whether they know the specific language the employer is looking for or not.
Employers are looking to hire you for your skills - your value proposition. They are NOT hiring you per your CAREER (goals, history, etc) they want to hire you for the skills you bring to help the team, the group, and the organization and the business goals.
"If code from 6 months ago looks good to you still, then you are not learning enough!"
Interviewing managers are interviewing you because they think you might be a good fit for the open position, so take that perspective and run with it. That moment is not the time to believe there is hidden conflict or disdain. Ryan said "I don't interview people that I don't genuinely believe I could hire".
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