7 ms·

I asked this in the comments section but it disappeared into thin air with no notification on what was happening(say, held for moderation etc).So I'll ask it h

I asked this in the comments section but it disappeared into thin air with no notification on what was happening(say, held for moderation etc).So I'll ask it here. Maybe an HN reader who works for MS might know the answer. From the article, "All managers have laptops. Most prety good ones." Do developers (testers etc) have laptops (pretty good ones)? Or are they "management only" perks? (fwiw all the bodyshopping companies in India follow the "only suits have laptops" pattern)

checoivan 16y ago
Laptops are officially only for managers and Program managers. As a dev/test you can get a loaner for a presentation or find one, somehow.
- plinkplonk 16y ago
  "Laptops are officially only for managers and Program managers." Heh! That's what I thought :-p Not surprised to hear MS works that way :-). Funny way to economise, making laptops status symbols. I think Google gives devs nice laptops and is probably better off for it.
  - rsbaskin 16y ago
    It's not really a status symbol. PMs tend to be more mobile, presenting in meetings and such, and need laptops. Devs and testers get much better desktops.
    - plinkplonk 16y ago
      "It's not really a status symbol." A status symbol is, by definition, something only or mostly upper echelons of a hierarchy can get, with fig leaf justifications about why the folks on the lower rungs are "not worthy" of them. The surest way to make anything (a private office, a parking space, a laptop) a status symbol is to mandate that only people above a certain level in the hierarchy can get one.(Note that I am responding to a comment that states that laptops are only for managers and devs have to get "loaners". Other people at MS seem to disagree that this is the case) "Devs and testers get much better desktops." Good desktops aren't an excuse for not having good laptops. The association of laptops with presentations and meetings conveys a lot about MS's approach to development. No wonder the place is infested with multiple layers of redundant management. I wonder how MS Research fares? Do Peyton Jones and co go laptopless too?
      - DaveMebs 16y ago
        Everything done at MSFT is based upon dev-test-pm triads where all members of the team have equal say in the product and decisions. This is true from the individual contributor level up to the VP level (where it starts to break down). Dev's report to dev leads, test to test leads, and PMs to PM leads. All PMs, including individual contributors, get laptops. They are the same level as developers, and more importantly, in a completely different hierarchy. I'm not going to lie and say devs don't want laptops - of course they do. Everyone wants a free laptop. But guess what? I'm a PM at MSFT, and you know what I want? A second desktop and better monitors. Are these a status symbols for devs? No. Resources are fairly assigned based on need, and everyone at the company realizes that. I should also point out that most senior devs do have laptops in my experience. It's the really new, junior guys that don't get them right away. There are communal resources if a dev really needs portability for a few days.
        plinkplonk 16y ago
        "I'm a PM at MSFT, and you know what I want? A second desktop and better monitors." If you want them to do your job and you are not getting them, that just illustrates the point better. Economizing on hardware (and paper towels, heh!) is really dumb for a software/tech company. "I should also point out that most senior devs do have laptops in my experience. It's the really new, junior guys that don't get them right away." So, in other words a laptop is a status symbol. Junior devs rank lower in the hierarchy though they use the same tools and work on the same codebases as senior devs.
        JanezStupar 16y ago
        So what you're saying is that where you work everybody has 2 desktops, 2 laptops and nobody would raise a brow if you wanted another? In my book what Microsoft does is waaaaay beyond "trying to save on toilet paper". The last place I worked having a monitor bigger than 19" was a status simbol. Excuse my patronizing - you are around/under 25 right? Because I have noticed that juniors tend to have this petty fascination with hardware that goes away with time (myself included).
  - Locke1689 16y ago
    Laptops are, for the most part, neither necessary nor useful. Most developing/testing work is done in a single place, so I never really had a problem.
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    The number of hours of work-from-home that Google gets out of those laptops more than justifies their cost. Hell, I'm posting this from my work laptop, taking a break from writing out a whole bunch of use cases and product design decisions.
    - lovskogen 16y ago
      What do you do over at Google?
      - nostrademons 16y ago
        Very broadly, Search Features. I worked on the visual redesign that launched last May, and before that some of the search tools (particularly Wonder Wheel and Related Searches) and a bit on the move from having separate search properties (books.google.com, blogs.google.com, video.google.com, etc.) to a single search app. Then I spent about 6 months doing some infrastructure stuff with the webserver, and I'm now doing some feature work that's in the early stages of the project.
        lovskogen 16y ago
        Cool. What tools do you use for daily design? I've been slowly moving from Photoshop to CSS, and want to start using stuff like Antetype early in the process. I've also figured out that Photoshop is good for finalizing a design that's been moved around, tested and iterated upon.
    - alexgartrell 16y ago
      Facebook is laptop-only[0], though I've not yet started [1] I imagine they have something similar in mind. [0] Plus an external monitor. [1] And from what I've read on HN, I probably won't, as they're going out of business any day now :P
- sriramk 16y ago
  5-year Microsoftie here (mostly PM, some dev) Sorry - I don't think that's true. When I was a dev I had a laptop. It is highly dependent on the team you work for. I know a lot of devs who have laptops. In fact, most things hardware related are highly related to the team you work for. Since MSFT works on such a variety of things, hardware needs tends to vary dramatically
  - paulcam 16y ago
    9 year softie here (Shell Test in my early days, now doing Dev work) Indeed everything is dependent on need. PMs always get laptops because they spend lots of time outside of their office. On my team, most dev leads are also issued laptops. Friends of mine in teams closer to laptop features (think Windows 7 touch input, for example) never have had problems getting a laptop. On my current team, it's not common for an IC dev to have a laptop. It's also not common to find an IC dev with a machine more than 8 months old. I haven't quite figured out what everyone else's fascination is with laptops. I bought one for my own personal use, brought it to work, and then stopped bringing it because it just sat on my desk doing nothing 95% of the time. The other 5% I've replaced with post-it notes which, I'm happy to say, are available to both PM and Dev.
- dmnd 16y ago
  It's very team dependent. Every dev in Bing has their own laptop. Of course most of us don't have our own office, it's more common to be doubled up.
- kprobst 16y ago
  I remember being at the MS Redmond campus for an MVP summit shortly before .NET was released (ca. 2000). Some of the devs in the VB.Net team would amble in to participate in discussions and whatnot (it was very informal). Most of them had laptops and did email and even coding while they were in the conference room. Again, this was 10 years ago or so, but I'd expect that developers can still get a laptop if they want to. Personally I've always preferred a desktop machine to code, because a laptop means I can take work home.
whiletruefork 16y ago
Depends on the team. I worked at a few different ones at MSFT, and generally the position was - two machines. Two desktops? Ok. Desktop + Laptop? Ok. Most developers went for the desktop x2 plan. PM's almost always went desktop + laptop. Again, this was for NEW machines. I had, at my peak, 6. 4 desktops and 2 laptops. Most of these were random old peices of hardware that were fit for recycling (but still fully functional!) that I used for whatever side projects I needed the hardware for. Everyone always complains about their PC hardware - but not once did I see someone who actually needed a piece of hardware go without it. Monitor upgrades, for some reason, were much rarer and didn't make sense at all.
tallanvor 16y ago
In the office I work out of, everyone has at least one laptop and a desktop. --Most people have at least 2 desktops, and of course there are plenty of servers as well (2 server rooms, in fact, one off-site). I work in support, but I spend a lot of time looking at code and speaking with developers. My laptop is my primary machine, but I also have two desktops - quad core systems with 16GB RAM that I use to run VMs in Hyper-V (I have to use both Windows and Linux VMs). --Typically I'll have around 3 VMs running on each desktop, plus up to 3 more that I can switch on when needed. I also have access to a set of 3 servers (48GB RAM and about 9TB disk space) that I share with a team of 10 people for when we need to configure a larger cluster for problem reproduction and resolution. Developers tend to have similar setups here.

checoivan 16y ago

Laptops are officially only for managers and Program managers. As a dev/test you can get a loaner for a presentation or find one, somehow.

plinkplonk 16y ago
"Laptops are officially only for managers and Program managers." Heh! That's what I thought :-p Not surprised to hear MS works that way :-). Funny way to economise, making laptops status symbols. I think Google gives devs nice laptops and is probably better off for it.
- rsbaskin 16y ago
  It's not really a status symbol. PMs tend to be more mobile, presenting in meetings and such, and need laptops. Devs and testers get much better desktops.
  - plinkplonk 16y ago
    "It's not really a status symbol." A status symbol is, by definition, something only or mostly upper echelons of a hierarchy can get, with fig leaf justifications about why the folks on the lower rungs are "not worthy" of them. The surest way to make anything (a private office, a parking space, a laptop) a status symbol is to mandate that only people above a certain level in the hierarchy can get one.(Note that I am responding to a comment that states that laptops are only for managers and devs have to get "loaners". Other people at MS seem to disagree that this is the case) "Devs and testers get much better desktops." Good desktops aren't an excuse for not having good laptops. The association of laptops with presentations and meetings conveys a lot about MS's approach to development. No wonder the place is infested with multiple layers of redundant management. I wonder how MS Research fares? Do Peyton Jones and co go laptopless too?
    - DaveMebs 16y ago
      Everything done at MSFT is based upon dev-test-pm triads where all members of the team have equal say in the product and decisions. This is true from the individual contributor level up to the VP level (where it starts to break down). Dev's report to dev leads, test to test leads, and PMs to PM leads. All PMs, including individual contributors, get laptops. They are the same level as developers, and more importantly, in a completely different hierarchy. I'm not going to lie and say devs don't want laptops - of course they do. Everyone wants a free laptop. But guess what? I'm a PM at MSFT, and you know what I want? A second desktop and better monitors. Are these a status symbols for devs? No. Resources are fairly assigned based on need, and everyone at the company realizes that. I should also point out that most senior devs do have laptops in my experience. It's the really new, junior guys that don't get them right away. There are communal resources if a dev really needs portability for a few days.
      - plinkplonk 16y ago
        "I'm a PM at MSFT, and you know what I want? A second desktop and better monitors." If you want them to do your job and you are not getting them, that just illustrates the point better. Economizing on hardware (and paper towels, heh!) is really dumb for a software/tech company. "I should also point out that most senior devs do have laptops in my experience. It's the really new, junior guys that don't get them right away." So, in other words a laptop is a status symbol. Junior devs rank lower in the hierarchy though they use the same tools and work on the same codebases as senior devs.
        JanezStupar 16y ago
        So what you're saying is that where you work everybody has 2 desktops, 2 laptops and nobody would raise a brow if you wanted another? In my book what Microsoft does is waaaaay beyond "trying to save on toilet paper". The last place I worked having a monitor bigger than 19" was a status simbol. Excuse my patronizing - you are around/under 25 right? Because I have noticed that juniors tend to have this petty fascination with hardware that goes away with time (myself included).
- Locke1689 16y ago
  Laptops are, for the most part, neither necessary nor useful. Most developing/testing work is done in a single place, so I never really had a problem.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  The number of hours of work-from-home that Google gets out of those laptops more than justifies their cost. Hell, I'm posting this from my work laptop, taking a break from writing out a whole bunch of use cases and product design decisions.
  - lovskogen 16y ago
    What do you do over at Google?
    - nostrademons 16y ago
      Very broadly, Search Features. I worked on the visual redesign that launched last May, and before that some of the search tools (particularly Wonder Wheel and Related Searches) and a bit on the move from having separate search properties (books.google.com, blogs.google.com, video.google.com, etc.) to a single search app. Then I spent about 6 months doing some infrastructure stuff with the webserver, and I'm now doing some feature work that's in the early stages of the project.
      - lovskogen 16y ago
        Cool. What tools do you use for daily design? I've been slowly moving from Photoshop to CSS, and want to start using stuff like Antetype early in the process. I've also figured out that Photoshop is good for finalizing a design that's been moved around, tested and iterated upon.
  - alexgartrell 16y ago
    Facebook is laptop-only[0], though I've not yet started [1] I imagine they have something similar in mind. [0] Plus an external monitor. [1] And from what I've read on HN, I probably won't, as they're going out of business any day now :P
sriramk 16y ago
5-year Microsoftie here (mostly PM, some dev) Sorry - I don't think that's true. When I was a dev I had a laptop. It is highly dependent on the team you work for. I know a lot of devs who have laptops. In fact, most things hardware related are highly related to the team you work for. Since MSFT works on such a variety of things, hardware needs tends to vary dramatically
- paulcam 16y ago
  9 year softie here (Shell Test in my early days, now doing Dev work) Indeed everything is dependent on need. PMs always get laptops because they spend lots of time outside of their office. On my team, most dev leads are also issued laptops. Friends of mine in teams closer to laptop features (think Windows 7 touch input, for example) never have had problems getting a laptop. On my current team, it's not common for an IC dev to have a laptop. It's also not common to find an IC dev with a machine more than 8 months old. I haven't quite figured out what everyone else's fascination is with laptops. I bought one for my own personal use, brought it to work, and then stopped bringing it because it just sat on my desk doing nothing 95% of the time. The other 5% I've replaced with post-it notes which, I'm happy to say, are available to both PM and Dev.
dmnd 16y ago
It's very team dependent. Every dev in Bing has their own laptop. Of course most of us don't have our own office, it's more common to be doubled up.
kprobst 16y ago
I remember being at the MS Redmond campus for an MVP summit shortly before .NET was released (ca. 2000). Some of the devs in the VB.Net team would amble in to participate in discussions and whatnot (it was very informal). Most of them had laptops and did email and even coding while they were in the conference room. Again, this was 10 years ago or so, but I'd expect that developers can still get a laptop if they want to. Personally I've always preferred a desktop machine to code, because a laptop means I can take work home.

whiletruefork 16y ago

Depends on the team. I worked at a few different ones at MSFT, and generally the position was - two machines. Two desktops? Ok. Desktop + Laptop? Ok. Most developers went for the desktop x2 plan. PM's almost always went desktop + laptop. Again, this was for NEW machines. I had, at my peak, 6. 4 desktops and 2 laptops. Most of these were random old peices of hardware that were fit for recycling (but still fully functional!) that I used for whatever side projects I needed the hardware for. Everyone always complains about their PC hardware - but not once did I see someone who actually needed a piece of hardware go without it. Monitor upgrades, for some reason, were much rarer and didn't make sense at all.

tallanvor 16y ago

In the office I work out of, everyone has at least one laptop and a desktop. --Most people have at least 2 desktops, and of course there are plenty of servers as well (2 server rooms, in fact, one off-site). I work in support, but I spend a lot of time looking at code and speaking with developers. My laptop is my primary machine, but I also have two desktops - quad core systems with 16GB RAM that I use to run VMs in Hyper-V (I have to use both Windows and Linux VMs). --Typically I'll have around 3 VMs running on each desktop, plus up to 3 more that I can switch on when needed. I also have access to a set of 3 servers (48GB RAM and about 9TB disk space) that I share with a team of 10 people for when we need to configure a larger cluster for problem reproduction and resolution. Developers tend to have similar setups here.