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Joel started his career at Microsoft in Redmond, WA, where it was common for developers to have their own private offices. I was there from 2007-2010, long aft

Joel started his career at Microsoft in Redmond, WA, where it was common for developers to have their own private offices. I was there from 2007-2010, long after Joel had left, but I mostly had a private office the whole time. I had to share an office for the first six months, but then after that, I had my own private office for the rest of my time there. My last year, I got a window office. Most of my co-workers had private offices, too. I got spoiled because that was my first job out of college, and I've never had such a good office setup as I did there.

allenu 3y ago
I worked at Microsoft from 2005-2017 and mostly had a private office during that entire period. There were some teams that I joined in the later years that were more "startupish" that worked in open spaces, which I really didn't like, and you could see the company moving to that model in the mid-2010s. Having a private office spoiled me as well, although I had come from companies that had cubicles. There was nothing like being able to close the door and turn up your music while you were coding. Nowadays, everyone is out in the open with headphones on, of course.
- sgerenser 3y ago
  I worked for Microsoft (not in Redmond) in 2020-2022, and remember seeing on Yammer posts about “Hey look, we’re turning these old abandoned offices (nobody wants to work in a private office anymore, amirite?) into [touchdown spaces/mini conference rooms/storage areas]!” I don’t know if it was all private offices, but the general feeling was that private offices were going away. Moot point for us as we were a satellite office that never had private offices to begin with.
  - vxNsr 3y ago
    wait, you guys actually used yammer????
    - fakedang 3y ago
      And here I was wondering why Microsoft paid so much for it. Well this answers it.
      - sgerenser 3y ago
        Yeah, Yammer was used pretty extensively within Microsoft. I didn’t use it much, but if you were at Microsoft but not based in Redmond, it was probably the best way to keep up with what was going on company-wide (for those that actually cared).

allenu 3y ago

I worked at Microsoft from 2005-2017 and mostly had a private office during that entire period. There were some teams that I joined in the later years that were more "startupish" that worked in open spaces, which I really didn't like, and you could see the company moving to that model in the mid-2010s. Having a private office spoiled me as well, although I had come from companies that had cubicles. There was nothing like being able to close the door and turn up your music while you were coding. Nowadays, everyone is out in the open with headphones on, of course.

sgerenser 3y ago
I worked for Microsoft (not in Redmond) in 2020-2022, and remember seeing on Yammer posts about “Hey look, we’re turning these old abandoned offices (nobody wants to work in a private office anymore, amirite?) into [touchdown spaces/mini conference rooms/storage areas]!” I don’t know if it was all private offices, but the general feeling was that private offices were going away. Moot point for us as we were a satellite office that never had private offices to begin with.
- vxNsr 3y ago
  wait, you guys actually used yammer????
  - fakedang 3y ago
    And here I was wondering why Microsoft paid so much for it. Well this answers it.
    - sgerenser 3y ago
      Yeah, Yammer was used pretty extensively within Microsoft. I didn’t use it much, but if you were at Microsoft but not based in Redmond, it was probably the best way to keep up with what was going on company-wide (for those that actually cared).