9 ms·
Microsoft needs Wizards: A 1984 Microsoft job posting
- marcusf 15y agoIt sounds like a fun place to be, and just reinforces that this industry seems to endlessly spin around in circles. I mean, when you read this and compare it to what you hear of MSFT today (via Mini, for example), it's not far off to compare it with Google who seems to be shifting from this to something more disciplined with Larry as the CEO. Extrapolating to what might happen to Facebook isn't far off either.
- petenixey 15y agoI know, I was thinking exactly the same thing as I read this. I wonder which large companies have held out against this type of decay through the decades and how they managed it.
- nazar 15y agoWhether that indeed a decay is questionable. Sony had its own approach to this(citing Yoshide Nakamura): Our company management felt that to prepare the company for the digital network era of the 21 century, it was important to have the most appropriate organizational structure in place. That was the core reason why we created our new structure. Sony is a large company now. Our worldwide consolidated sales are over $56 billion, with 170,000 employees, but in spirit we always try to be small venture company. We want to maintain this, So when Mr.Nabuyuki Idei became president in April 1995, he gave us two slogans: "Regeneration" and "Digital Dream Kids." Thats the spirit of being small and going back to when we started Sony in 1946. So we want to make Sony smaller. Instead of having this huge corporation, he wants to organize Sony into four divisional companies so that a small venture capital spirit can be brought into management
- meric 15y ago"The technical hierarchy is kept very simple and 'shallow' so that there is minimal bullshit and over-organization." With this posting it seems like deep hierarchy bullishit and over-organization is inevitable in any growing organisation.
- KaeseEs 15y agoIf you read a bit of Brooks, you'll see why this is indeed more or less inevitable - the addition of hierarchy reduces the communication costs in a growing organization.
- Drbble 15y agoBrooks oversimplified a bit. In a large organization, more PMs and subdivindings into groups are necessary. Hierarchy isn't.
- kenrikm 15y agoExactly, two things came to mind when I read that. First: Sounds like a great place to work! Second: What happend?
- dasil003 15y agoSuccess. Wasn't it pg who said that in early-stage startups you attract people who want to build a great company, but in later stage companies you attract people who want to work for a great company?
- chollida1 15y agoI thought it was Jamie Zawinski: http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html
- icegreentea 15y agoI think that cyclical is a much more accurate description than 'endlessly spin around in circles'. The latter implies no net progress, which I don't believe is really true.
- Maxious 15y agoIs rockstars the new wizards?
- drats 15y agoSpeculation: you could easily get to the #1 spot on HN with a blog entitled "From Wizards to Rockstars: what's wrong with the motivation of the current generation of technologists".
- bwarp 15y agoHa that is so true. Ironically I just posted a rant against that crap: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3628371 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3628371
- InclinedPlane 15y agoRockstars are not such a bad model to emulate for hackers. Most rockstars are talented, passionate about their craft, spend at least a decade just honing their abilities through constant practice, spend years grinding on their projects in relative obscurity and poverty until they finally find something that resonates with the public and/or gain enough exposure to attain popularity and success after which they work even harder to capitalize on it making art and experiences that stand the test of time and attain a commensurate level of recognition, appreciation, and financial reward. The cartoon image of rockstars as the idle rich with some inborn exceptional talent or some luck of fate that allows them to attain a life of fame and fortune with very little effort is, of course, a much less noble behavioral model to want to emulate.
- gaius 15y ago"Rockstar" in the software context is the politically correct way to say "prima donna" (with all the positive and negative connotations thereof). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_donna http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_donna
- InclinedPlane 15y ago
- mrspeaker 15y agoThey had me at "private offices (as many with windows as topology permits)" (assuming topology permits at least 1)
- drostie 15y agoMicrosoft is infinite: it has no walls, and therefore, no windows. The Microsoft that can be known is not the eternal Microsoft. The wizards that can whiz are not the eternal wizards.
- RyanMcGreal 15y agoOn the contrary: Microsoft is almost all windows, but they all look inward.
- kabdib 15y agoAlso, they put a lot of people in cubicals now. The short kind, where it's impossible to get privacy, or quiet.
- larsberg 15y agoNot the software development teams in Redmond, at least as of 2007, though some of the support and administrative services certainly were. The goal was to give all dev team members their own private office. Interns and the more junior people (in terms of number of years at MSFT) are "doubled up" if there are insufficient spaces, but it is generally considered a bad thing and something management tries to minimize.
- mrspeaker 15y agoI thought I was reasonably savvy of old-school tech, but what is this type of address? decvax!Microsoft!joannr
- harrigan 15y agoI think it's a bang path: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP#Bang_path http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP#Bang_path
- InclinedPlane 15y agoYup. It's basically a route described as a list of hosts. One of the hosts is actually on the internet proper, and then the message would be transferred to each successive host along the way using whatever local links were available (including dialup modems) using a store and forward protocol. As dedicated internet access became more common UUCP became obsolete.
- mahmud 15y agoWe use it at work to collect point-of-sale data from our stores. Don't ask me how it got there, I wasn't around when that happened, but yes, UUCP.
- spitfire 15y agoI implemented a UUCP network in 2001. It was still around because of some legacy (SCO UNIX) systems which just couldn't be gotten rid of. Fortunately, these things are much less common now that software costs are essentially zero.
- mbowcock 15y agodecvax was DEC unix engineering groups vax on uucp/usenet. I believe it was the first system to move email in realtime. Microsoft must have been linked through this vax.
- thomasjoulin 15y ago"we never do anything stupid because some manager/MBA/suit-type has power without knowledge". Sounds like Steve Ballmer, right ?
- yuhong 15y agoThis was back in 1984. I wonder what led Bill Gates to choose Ballmer as the new CEO.
- sriramk 15y agoBallmer was back in the company then. People outside MSFT underestimate the technical know how of SteveB - he ran release management for the first version of Windows. He understands software. He might be doing a terrible job the last decade but that is not due to him being some 'MBA' stereotype. Also - BillG really trusts Steve. They've worked together for over 25 years.
- dragonquest 15y agoThis is a really good point. Ballmer may not be the greatest CEO ever, but he does understand Microsoft products and what engineering goes on behind them. His interview in which he made fun of IBM wanting metrics like KLOC and judging quality by that shows that he had some clue even back then (~12-13 years ago).
- statictype 15y agoI wonder what led Bill Gates to choose Ballmer as the new CEO. Probably counting the number of zeroes in his account balance and realizing that he's answerable to stock-holders now.
- JanezStupar 15y agoIn hackerspace its so cool to rail against MS and especially against Steve Ballmer. The truth is that MS has always been a great company, on all accounts I have ever read on the matter it appears to me that MS is a kind of organization that any hacker would love to work for. But its been a fifteen years from when MS was considered cool. Hip kids don't want to look at it. They don't even want to educate about it. So they go and work and sing praises to Google and FB, who have just now started to show their different, corporate nature. And geeks have gone and given them the scepter of Power. And I find it ironic that these new hip companies represent a greater danger to computing, freedom and privacy than MS ever has. They say that he who fails to learn the lessons of the past is doomed to repeat the same mistakes.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- pjmlp 15y agoYeah the good old days when everyone still wanted to work there (me included). Lets see how many of the "good" companies of today will turn in future dark side companies as Microsoft is usually associated nowadays.
- Drbble 15y agoEh, Google went evil, Facebook was chartered evil, Msft overflowed and is back to good.
- dsrguru 15y agoBeing too young to remember a world without the Internet, I'm surprised to see that the terms "venture capital" and "startup" were in vogue in 1984.
- petercooper 15y agoInternet for the masses, perhaps, but that job posting is from a Usenet post nonetheless :-) I miss the Usenet of yesteryear, nothing now comes close, but even I was surprised to look it up just now and see it started in 1980!
- pferde 15y agoYou might find http://olduse.net http://olduse.net interesting, then.
- petercooper 15y agoOh no.. you might have just found me a new (old?) hobby! :-)
- irollboozers 15y agoI am by no means an old-school software guy, but I have distinct memories of when my dad worked in emerging software companies. And more importantly, back when Microsoft was 'cool'. It was like having free soda in the break rooms and awesome company picnics was -the- status symbol of a fun career. Now, people much more junior expect all of that, plus crazy workplaces, free meals, free babysitting, free carwash, free haircuts, etc. I wonder what the current entry level software engineer ad at Microsoft looks like. Which is weird, at my school UW, they weren't even there at the CS career fair. Meanwhile FB was there with free t-shirts, Google had a giant android costumed guy waddling around, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. They all made it seem like you weren't even applying for jobs, and you weren't even expected to actually have to work. Microsoft definitely helped define the techie dream workplace, even after they got 'huge'. Why did that have to change?
- nadam 15y ago"Now, people much more junior expect all of that, plus crazy workplaces, free meals, free babysitting, free carwash, free haircuts, etc." Junior or not, only a tiny percentage of people can get these perks. For example google recieves 1 million CVs a year approximately 5000 of which get a job offer (0.5%). (approximately 35% of those who are allowed to have a phone interview are allowed to the onsite interviews and approximately 25% of the 'onsite-interviewed' people get a job offer.)
- alexis-d 15y agoDo you have any sources for those numbers? Thanks!
- nadam 15y agoSure. This is the most informative public document I've found on the Google hiring process, it contains the 35% and 25% estimation: http://www.qqtm.info/Interview/Google_Guide.pdf http://www.qqtm.info/Interview/Google_Guide.pdf The 0.5% (in fact less than 0.5%) comes from Google itself, from Don Dodge's blog: http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2010/09/how-to-get-a-job-at-google-interview-questions-hiring-process.html http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2010/09/how-t... I've researched this because I was on an onsite interview at Google on Tuesday and I am waiting for their answer right now...
- postit 15y agoBack in that day they offered private offices, now you can barely have a place to call your own.
- dpark 15y agoThey still put their SDEs, SDETs, and PMs in private offices. There are some cubicles on the Redmond campus, but they are the exception, and I've never talked to anyone who who had a cube.
- muyuu 15y agoI wonder if it's this person: http://www.classmates.com/directory/public/memberprofile/list.htm?regId=34648741 http://www.classmates.com/directory/public/memberprofile/lis...
- cpach 15y agoThe message is posted by Gordon Letwin.
- aurelianito 15y agoIf I see a job posting with the exact same wording Today, I will apply for the job. So much better than the standard "looking for a (ruby|python|c|javascript) (rockstar|ninja)" than it makes me cry!
- verelo 15y agoI hate the term rockstar, and i dont think ninja's are good communicators...always sneaking about. Seriously though, think of what a rockstar is like. High maintenance, on drugs, performs for a short period of time then expects a high payout, goes out late and misses gigs...i dont want a rockstar. I want a WIZARD! I'm pretty sure wizards are reliable and old school...
- wonderyak 15y agoWizards are certainly never late. In seriousness; all job postings should be written by a member of the department hiring for the position.
- amcintyre 15y agoEvery time I've gone for an interview after seeing "rockstar" in the job description, it's gone poorly, and usually because I saw enough in 5 minutes (or less) to know I didn't want to work there. Half the time the recruiter is so excited about the opportunity to bring "rockstar" candidates to such an awesome company that they seem to forget to actually read my resume, so I'm interviewing for a position that doesn't match my skill set at all.
- leo79 15y agoI email my resumee to decvax!Microsoft!joannr. No response so far.
- aurelianito 15y agoI wonder if joannr@microsoft.com would work.
- dlokshin 15y agoWhat struck me most is that the following was clearly a pride point of the culture at MSFT: "The company is owned (a key issue) and operated by software wizards: Bill Gates and Paul Allen." Not anymore. Company is now run by a professional bean counter brought into that position by the former software whiz.
- sauravc 15y agohttp://peteandcarol.com/msft.htm http://peteandcarol.com/msft.htm
- duxup 15y agoI think this Microsoft company is going to really take off.
- verelo 15y agoThose who don't learn from history are destined to repeat it, given all the startups that exist today i'm very glad people are reading this job posting. Your cool company today can change significantly, and maybe thats ok...but it is a little sad, i think you'd struggle to get a similar recommendation for MS these days.
- jgfoot 15y agoMike Maples talks more about Microsoft back then: (http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/107465/1/oh387mm.pdf http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/107465/1/oh387mm.pdf ): """I can remember going to the first Microsoft Company picnic in 1988. There were only two children. Microsoft had 1,800 employees and there were only a couple of them that were married. You had all these young kids who weren't married and were right out of school. IBM had conventional dress codes; Microsoft - it was very much like a college campus. The only difference in how they lived, the hours they kept and the way they dressed, between a college campus and Microsoft was that Microsoft bought the equipment. They all wore their shorts and half of them wore sandals or no shoes. Microsoft bought a lot of T-shirts and things for them. There weren't set hours - the management system was to let people pick or sign up for what they were going to do, and it was up to them to do it. So there was very little management attention over directing people or telling them what to do - it was a very empowered work force. And my suspicion was that that was the way IBM was in the 1930s and 1940s. They were much more formal, because the time was much more formal in terms of dress. But in terms of the ages and the attitudes and the mission the people were on - I think it would be a lot the same."""
- untog 15y agoI think it's an inevitable transition that Google is going through right now. Probably Facebook, too.
- sliverstorm 15y agoPerhaps it is as simple as a direct consequence of the average age at the company?
- greghinch 15y agoYea, old people are boring and suck. Wait I just turned 30. Crap!
- chollida1 15y agoWow, that pdf is a gold mine. I especially liked the section where he hi lights Microsoft's hiring practice as one of the main differentiators from its competitors """ So we had a very intensive interview process. The last interviewer was called the hiring manager, but after every interview, as the candidate left the office, the interviewer sent out an email and wrote the result of the interview. So by the end of the 6th interview, the hiring manager had all reviews but the one where the guy was at that time. The first word on the write-up had to be “hire” or “no-hire”. There wasn't any "maybe" or... "This guy would be good in some other group". It was ... “I would work with this guy” or not. “I think he would work into my group” or not. So the hiring manager then had all of these write-ups and all of these decisions or recommendations. And he would decide whether or not to offer the guy a job. If we offered the guy or gal a job, then the next day would be spent in trying to talk them into realizing how good it was to work at Microsoft; that it's a good place to live and all those things…being nice to them for a change. Of the 10 we'd bring back, we'd hire one. So we hired about 1 out of every 100 that we initially interviewed. So the total picture is: we've interviewed 10 guys, 8 times each - 80 interviews. We interviewed 100 guys one time, 100 interviews − so we've done about 200 interviews for every person we hired. If you think about hours - that's a lot of hours, and recruiters aren't going to do that. Recruiters aren't going to test coding ability. We had recruiters who managed the logistics and managed the reference checks. We also did aggressive reference checks − we had a whole series of questions we'd ask. Most people doing reference checks are trying to be kind and nice and so people aren't as accurate as you'd like them to be. So you come up with a whole set of questions like: “I know this guy is really good, but what is the one thing you'd counsel him to improve?” Or you'd try to get them to reveal what were some of the deficiencies"""
- krobertson 15y ago"Your work won't be canceled due to some political/financial upheaval" Don't think that is true anymore. Wasn't there a post by a former project manager of Silverlight a while ago? While that may not be representative of Microsoft to that degree, I've worked with enough former Softies to know politics play a big role. Especially in the war between Office and Windows.
- johnx123-up 15y agoJames Gordon Letwin (born July 2, 1952)is an American software developer and one of the original twelve Microsoft employees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Letwin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Letwin
- jdp23 15y agoBack in the 1980s, research showed individual offices for developers resulted in significantly higher productivity. [Peopleware has a good chapter on this, if I recall correctly.] This was a core part of MS culture until the mid-2000s, when overcrowding led to office sharing. I intereviewed at MS as I was graduating college in 1983. My interview loop included Charles Simonyi and Steve Ballmer, who had just gotten a prerelease of the Tandy Model 100 mentioned in the OP and demoed it to me in the interview. It was definitely a programmer-centric world, in the best way; but people I talked to also had a very strong business focus as well. I turned down the job offer to go to grad school ... by the time I wound up there in 1999 after selling them my startup, it was a very different place.
- publicus 15y agoMicrosoft today is the exactly opposite, full of politics and back stabbing. Which is why I left 2 years ago and is now so much happier.
- CosmicShadow 15y agoHow many of you heard Dire Straits in their head when you read that they had Microwave ovens? I would even go so far as to assume that some rooms had colour TVs.
- blafro 15y agowith guitars playing on the mtv.