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View Full Version : Would you work for Microsoft ?



bored2k
December 16th, 2005, 06:28 PM
Would you?

Note: Excess trolling will not be tolerated.

DoeRayMe
December 16th, 2005, 06:33 PM
Not me

No matter how much they pay ;)

jc87
December 16th, 2005, 06:59 PM
If i needed the money really bad , and couldnīt find job anywhere else.

Besides , i would more probably to serve cofee than write code , and who knows , may i had the chance to destroy them from the inside:rolleyes:.

MetalMusicAddict
December 16th, 2005, 07:03 PM
Only If I could work on the Xbox side and help people to hack 360s. :) Otherwise, I like working with my hands. ;)

Adrian
December 16th, 2005, 07:22 PM
Me? No. I must believe in what I do to fully enjoy it.

I did some work for them back in the late 90's, as a consultant. I rediscovered how fun computing is when I stopped using their producs a couple of years ago, and now I do my best to avoid Microsoft-based solutions (so now they won't hire me again anyway :) ).

teaker1s
December 16th, 2005, 07:27 PM
I believe in developers who do it as a challenge and U'd be disapointed that any bugs weren't quickly fixed. Hacking a 360 will be a lot harder than the original xbox-what would be interesting is an xbox/360 emulator that completely worked

prammy
December 16th, 2005, 07:34 PM
Actually I have worked for them in the recent past and I would work for them again in the future.

They have a lot of great people who work for them and a good work ethic. Their internal products have amazed me more than their public offerings.

ember
December 16th, 2005, 07:38 PM
I would not have many obligations against working for them - at least not more as against working for any other international company.
Yet I am not sure, if I will enjoy working for such a large company for years - maybe smaller firms offer more opportunities for creative working.

I do however not like how microsoft is behaving towards its competitors, but as stated above that applies to many large companies.

stimpack
December 16th, 2005, 07:45 PM
I would work there and steal as much stationary as possible.

wrtrdood
December 16th, 2005, 07:58 PM
If you would work there, expect 60-70 hour weeks (salary). No thanks. Been there, done that.

benplaut
December 16th, 2005, 08:29 PM
i would love to work in the hardware department (mice, keyboards, gamepads, joysticks...), but it would just be morally horrible to work in the Windows dep...

Kvark
December 16th, 2005, 08:40 PM
I wouldn't like to work on a department or project that is just another building block in a large scheme some some big boss way above the head of my boss controls. The project would have it's hands tied to fit into the major scheme and if the big boss changes strategy then the project has to dance along with the big changes.

A small company where I can know everyone and my boss has free hands to be creative with the projects cause he doesn't have yet another and yet another boss above him would be more interesting.

But if I would have to work for a huge company then Microsoft would be as good as any. They aren't really evil, they're just greedy like any other for profit organization. And I'm sure they have a lot of smart and interesting people there even though it doesn't always show in their products.

Stormy Eyes
December 16th, 2005, 09:26 PM
Would you?

Only if I had to choose between Microsoft and the US government.

Gandalf
December 16th, 2005, 09:30 PM
Nice question bored2k :)

but no way, i would never work & support a company like Microsoft..

aysiu
December 16th, 2005, 09:35 PM
I would if all of the following statements were true:

1. They let me use a computer with only Ubuntu installed on it.
2. They let me use only open source programs to do my work
3. They paid me a lot of money
4. They let me work somewhere other than Redmond

xequence
December 16th, 2005, 11:37 PM
Yes, why not? Sure they dont always have the best practices. But it would be fun to do microsoft stuff and have a computer running FreeBSD.

23meg
December 17th, 2005, 04:20 AM
I'd consider if I believed I'd be in a position where I could cause some real difference in there. Since I don't, no way.

PatrickMay16
December 17th, 2005, 04:23 AM
If I was fully qualified and able to do such a job, I would definitely work for Microsoft.
From what I've heard, it's a nice company to work with.

darth_vector
December 17th, 2005, 05:07 AM
no way! not unless my children had nothing to eat. then again; i dont have children...

they come around the university every couple of months trying to get people interested. every year they are snobbed by more and more people :D

matthew
December 17th, 2005, 05:37 AM
I put "other" because I don't have any skills that would make it likely they would want to hire me so in my case it is a moot question.

BoyOfDestiny
December 17th, 2005, 06:07 AM
Sure I would... (laughter).

How To Write Unmaintainable Code

http://thc.org/root/phun/unmaintain.html

Although, I hate coding, so kudos to all the open source devs out there.

Anyway, hopefully you folks will enjoy this link (if you've touched any oop languages you should "get it")

Arktis
December 17th, 2005, 06:12 AM
Besides , i would more probably to serve cofee than write code , and who knows , may i had the chance to destroy them from the inside.

Only If I could work on the Xbox side and help people to hack 360s. :) Otherwise, I like working with my hands. ;)

I would work there and steal as much stationary as possible.

Sure I would... (laughter).

How To Write Unmaintainable Code

http://thc.org/root/phun/unmaintain.html

Da, comrades. :D

mistic
December 17th, 2005, 01:28 PM
Well I wouldn't, under no circumstances, I just wouldn't be able to motivate myself to get up in the morning to go to work... even if they pay me a huge amount of money... I can't stand working for/with something that I don't like...

Allthough I must admit that M$ does offer really intresting benefits...
-Floating hours: just do the hours you're supposed to do, no matter when, just work whenever you want... ( eg if you really like working at night, you can just come in around 1800 and leave in the morning )
-HUGE pays, when my school went to visit the 'company' in redmont, one of my friends talked to a 'senior programer' on the W2003-team that started working there at 10K$ a month and was earning 12k$ at the time of the visit... (you can also see this on the parking lot, most cars over there are really exclusive.
-M$-shop, in the company, there's a shop for the employees, with really _low_ prices ( eg WIN XP Prof for 50$ )
- free food + drinks of high quality in the restaurants and so on

grts
mistic

jeremy
December 17th, 2005, 01:49 PM
And have Steve Bullmer as my boss? No!

LinuxSwede
December 17th, 2005, 02:11 PM
Give me enough cash and i'd work for satan if there was a satan.

Unfortunantly, whether we like it or not, if you're not living of your mom and dad's cash, you'll be living off of your own cash, cash is king.

sarastro_us
December 17th, 2005, 06:04 PM
A friend of mine got me an interview with MSN earlier this year. It was *such* a joy to sit in the waiting room, updating my resume on my laptop on Open Office under Linux, boldly showing off the Firefox sticker on the lid. I got so many looks that morning ;-)

dcast
December 17th, 2005, 06:06 PM
It would give you an opportunity to improve ******* (if thats possible) lol

earobinson
December 17th, 2005, 08:14 PM
And have Steve Bullmer as my boss? No!
But you would learn how to duck under flying chairs!

My answer Is maybe, Right now I work for an open source company, but I have nothing aginst close source programs, The only thing I hate is software that has what I call 'closed standards' I define such SW as SW that just scrues the user over because of lack of compatibility with anything else. My Example of this will be the .doc, MS owns the .doc file format and will not tell anyone else how to use it. MSN ICQ are other examples where the companies wont tell others how to use there product. Yahoo mail is desinged so that you cant get your mail off If you switch services. All of this in my mind is closed standard programing. Programing that is desinged to make it so the user cant leave.

Now why do I say maybe, MS seems to be moving slowly away from this with the .doc example the next version of office (and they will update all other versions of office to do the same) will save files by deafult in an open XML format. (there is a link on my blog to this artical). If MS did a bit more of this alowing other users to interact freely with there SW and files I would have no problem workign for them. But as of yet im not sure they have made that shift.

Sorry for the long unedited rant..... maybe Ill post a good version later

Enter
December 18th, 2005, 10:38 PM
it would be nice but the ultimate goal is Google
Google is the best :D

sapo
December 19th, 2005, 02:29 AM
Sure I would... (laughter).

How To Write Unmaintainable Code

http://thc.org/root/phun/unmaintain.html

Although, I hate coding, so kudos to all the open source devs out there.

Anyway, hopefully you folks will enjoy this link (if you've touched any oop languages you should "get it")
man.. this text is perfect, sadly the coders that work with me dont know english, but...

When i started working at my actual job (php coder) there was a girl that was leaving, she worked there for 7 years i think.. man.. we are already in the third programmer.. nobody wants to maintain her code, now they are starting over all the software that she wrote.. cause nobody dares to try fixing it, i think that she used this text as reference :)

gRiMgRaVy014
December 19th, 2005, 03:14 AM
I would want to work in technical support and tell people to get linux instead of windows.

sapo
December 19th, 2005, 03:32 AM
I would want to work in technical support and tell people to get linux instead of windows.
I told my boss this:

"Please tell the customer, that this program works better with firefox.".

he complained, saying that everybody uses IE, and i need to make a better code, so it can run better on IE.

My will was to kill him.. seriouslly.

Its not my fault that IE is dumb and cant understand that the menu need to be ABOVE the drop down menus, and not BELOW, so in some ocasions is impossible to click on a menu using IE, cause the stupid drop down stays above the menu, and this doesnt happen in firefox.

So, its my fault cause i dont freaking know a workaround to make the stupid IE understand what needs to be above and what needs to be below...

Lovechild
December 19th, 2005, 04:10 AM
Sure why not, I know several people who loves open source but has been or is currently being employed by Microsoft. Jesse Keating, the Fedora Release Engineer e.g. used to be with PogoLinux but before that.. a Microsoft employee. All the while contributing to the community.

Microsoft would most certainly be an interesting employeer and all jokes aside on Ballmer, he wouldn't be me direct superior, if they called tomorrow and offered me a job, I'd be a fool not to take it.

Now would I work in Microsoft PR/Marketing - that's a whole other question, I don't like lying that much to my fellow humans and pulling off **** like their Get the facts campaign wouldn't be in my nature.

Gurgeh
December 24th, 2005, 05:08 PM
Sapo, your avatar is the coolest collection of pixels I have ever seen!

The Warlock
December 24th, 2005, 05:53 PM
Hey, a CS grad's gotta eat, y'know.

senkila
January 16th, 2006, 07:55 AM
As User-Friendly describes Windows Programmers, I'd like to keep my hands free of gnarlyness..

briancurtin
January 16th, 2006, 08:51 AM
I told my boss this:

"Please tell the customer, that this program works better with firefox.".

he complained, saying that everybody uses IE, and i need to make a better code, so it can run better on IE.

My will was to kill him.. seriouslly.

Its not my fault that IE is dumb and cant understand that the menu need to be ABOVE the drop down menus, and not BELOW, so in some ocasions is impossible to click on a menu using IE, cause the stupid drop down stays above the menu, and this doesnt happen in firefox.

So, its my fault cause i dont freaking know a workaround to make the stupid IE understand what needs to be above and what needs to be below...
im sorry, but this is your fault. not trying to flame, or take over this thread, just so it isnt taken that way


now for taking a job at MS: yes i would do it. i am a fan of open source, and i dont run windows anymore at all, but i would take a job there if i was offered one (being that it is better than any of the other offer(s) i received)

nocturn
January 16th, 2006, 09:01 AM
I have certain standards in what kind of work I will do.

Thing that are certainly out are working for:
- Weapons companies
- Tobacco industry
- Microsoft

All of them on ethical grounds.

earobinson
January 16th, 2006, 04:46 PM
I have certain standards in what kind of work I will do.

Thing that are certainly out are working for:
- Weapons companies
- Tobacco industry
- Microsoft

All of them on ethical grounds.
Would you work for apple? If yes then why apple and not MS?

drizek
January 16th, 2006, 10:40 PM
I have certain standards in what kind of work I will do.

Thing that are certainly out are working for:
- Weapons companies
- Tobacco industry
- Microsoft

All of them on ethical grounds.

agreed. and i would rather work for MS than for apple. Bill gates has his flaws, but steve jobs is just a greedy bastard.

Also, i have no ethical problem with working at MS to help port directx/office to linux or to improve the standards compliance of IE/office. id die before i work at MS marketing though.

either way, i dont have the skillz to work at ms anyway cause i cant code(although it doesnt seem they put too much emphasis on that ;)).

Wide
January 16th, 2006, 11:27 PM
I will work for anybody if they meet my demands. ;)

Iandefor
January 17th, 2006, 12:03 AM
If I was desperately in need of money and couldn't get a job anywhere else, yes. I'd hate to do it, but I'd be willing to swallow my pride and work for them if I was in dire straits. Anyways, if I was lucky, I could probably cause some merry hell while working there!

Bandit
February 14th, 2006, 10:41 PM
I would take a job as a janitor.
Then go around planting C4 through out the complex. :D

Qrk
February 14th, 2006, 10:52 PM
As long as I could use Ubuntu on my work computer.

hil
February 14th, 2006, 10:55 PM
I want to work at Microsoft if Microsoft sponsor my H1B visa. If I can't get a job within 60 days, the US homeland security will deport me. I am desperate. If Microsoft accepts me, I'd like to go.

TrendyDark
February 15th, 2006, 01:05 AM
Thanks for closing my duplicate thread, sorry about that. I would if the money were right. :)

Robgould
February 15th, 2006, 03:06 PM
I would work for them in a second. If you like computers and want to work in the field, want to be paid well, want relative security, and a lot of room for advancement why not Microsoft? They are not going anywhere soon.

mountielad
March 12th, 2007, 06:07 PM
The issue for me is one of respect and atmosphere.
Having worked for a multinational before (retail), the lack of trust, respect and minion status that you experience leaves one feeling alienated and drained. Due to the size of Microsoft, I'd imagine this to be so, but I might be wrong.
They could be like the umpteen IT companies in Ireland dressed with nice colours, free doughnuts and the fact that you don't have to wear a tie [gasp]. It's important to exist in a creative, cooperative and egalitarian environment!

PingunZ
April 26th, 2007, 04:23 PM
Only if the money is good, Sorry :)

Cheers

tehbeermang
April 26th, 2007, 04:47 PM
I told my boss this:

"Please tell the customer, that this program works better with firefox.".

he complained, saying that everybody uses IE, and i need to make a better code, so it can run better on IE.

My will was to kill him.. seriouslly.

Its not my fault that IE is dumb and cant understand that the menu need to be ABOVE the drop down menus, and not BELOW, so in some ocasions is impossible to click on a menu using IE, cause the stupid drop down stays above the menu, and this doesnt happen in firefox.

So, its my fault cause i dont freaking know a workaround to make the stupid IE understand what needs to be above and what needs to be below...

I know how it goes. I'm working on an object-oriented javascript for my own personal amusement that works flawlessly in Firefox, it won't even load up in IE. (Method not implemented error at "window.onload" in IE6, haven't tried it on the laptop's IE7. I know for a fact that it won't recognize "handleEvent" methods within my objects.)

BUT: that's my own personal amusement.

When it comes to business, you have to realize that a majority of Windows users (by default a majority of web surfers) won't bother with alternative browsers. Don't force the user to change settings on their machine to work with your website. That serves to remind users of the "back" button.

Make the website work on everything.

And arguing with the boss means a smaller pay raise at review time. ;)

super breadfish
April 26th, 2007, 05:00 PM
I'd certainly give it a go. Microsoft might seem completely different when you are on the inside looking out. Not to mention all the expert programmers, hardware designers etc that would be around to learn from.

And even so, you know what they say, know your enemy...

mills
April 26th, 2007, 05:08 PM
do they have a free canteen?:-k

Somenoob
April 26th, 2007, 05:23 PM
Wouldn't work for anyone who opposes software freedom. But if I didn't have a choice I probably would.

justin whitaker
April 26th, 2007, 05:36 PM
I voted no, simply because I could not join the cult.

I once worked at Fidelity...no bigger cult than their corporate culture: "We are the greatest! We rock! We have the latest technology!" All the while using software that was the latest technology in 1988, and bleeding NAVs because the PMs couldn't tell their **** from their elbow. I left pretty quick..fired actually, but the feeling was more than mutual.

Looking at Vista, and the cf that that turned out to be, I bet Redmond is exactly the same way.

Sunnz
April 26th, 2007, 05:57 PM
Why not? If they have an interesting position and better pay than other company.

I am however, still studying, so this won't be anything I would consider in the near future.

getaboat
April 26th, 2007, 09:26 PM
Well I work for an MS only software house. The people I deal with from time to time at MS seem top bananas and know their stuff. They've got some very able technical people. It just seems to be getting all so complicated.

Before the MS stuff - some five years ago I worked on Unix based products. When I chose Ubuntu rather than go down the Vista route for my home computing it was good to hear the bells ringing when I had to go down to the command line - though as a Unix application developer user the admin stuff is still a struggle.

W98 vs Vista - chalk and cheese.

I voted yes.

Pobega
April 26th, 2007, 10:29 PM
I don't care how much money they offer me, it goes against my standards. I would hate to have to build programs that restrict what people do for my own selfish gain.

The reason I use Linux is because it was created to benefit the "small" inventor, and not the suits upstairs.

noneofthem
April 26th, 2007, 10:36 PM
I do work across the street from Microsoft here in Dublin and that alone is a pain. I would never work for a company that is doing such a "business". For me it would be the same as working for the Mafia, but without actually killing people.

MS-no way!

none of them

leg
April 26th, 2007, 11:13 PM
I would prefer if it were in the lab where they have been reverse engineering Linux for two years.

skwishybug
April 27th, 2007, 01:44 AM
I do indirectly--work in tech support for one of their products (and not one of their software ones)

Stew2
April 27th, 2007, 01:59 AM
Hey, why not? I hate my current job so much anything would be an improvement! :D

gorg
April 27th, 2007, 02:46 AM
i voted yes, but, for me it would probably be a peon type position .

janitor, mail room , something along those lines.

don't really have anything against the company.

Tundro Walker
April 27th, 2007, 03:54 AM
I voted "Other (specify)", because in a sense I already do work for them. I'm a certified Microsoft Office Specialst, meaning I paid too much money to get a piece of paper saying "I really do know how to use Access, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook".

Honestly, the certification makes sense, but they make you re-cert every time they come out with a new version, and there's hardly much new in the new versions. in fact, I'm using Office 2000 on my machine at work, and about 2 months ago, I took the certs for Office 2003. I didn't study for them or anything, and passed with flying colors. In fact I LEARNED stuff while I was taking the cert tests, because it's just a matter of clicking around in the logical menus and doing stuff. The stupid part is, you usually have to do stuff you used to do in previous versions (EG: make a pivot table in Excel), but they screw around with new, alternate ways to do the task using "smart" menus and crap, that you have to RE-LEARN how to do some stuff (stupid!).

And the "smart" menus suck! I found it more difficult to do some tasks having to use the "smart" menus then when I didn't. Annoying...

The annoying part has been Microsoft changing their "Master Certification" criteria. A while back, you used to have to take 4 of the 5 tests to get Master Certification. Now, you have to take 3 specific ones (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), and your choice of the last 2 (Access or Outlook). Now, I took all the certs except PowerPoint, thinking it would get me the Master Cert. But, because they changed the criteria recently, I don't get my cert and need to take the PowerPoint test. Again, annoying...

In the long run, I'd have to say "No, I would not work for Microsoft, because they haven't worked for me so far!" I will admit that a lot of smart people work at Microsoft, and I'd be fascinated to work in one of their R&D dept's. But, knowing my luck, I'd get stuck working in some administrative dept, like Contract Labor, HR or some junk like that, miles away from any creativity or development.

Wow...so jaded...

FoolsGold
April 27th, 2007, 03:58 AM
I'd be fascinated to work in one of their R&D dept's.
Ditto. R&D's where the interesting action is, and if I was able to work in R&D at Microsoft, I'd have no qualms.

I might despise the company for most other things, but hey, if Mark Russinovich doesn't mind being there, I probably wouldn't either.

r.k.maroon
April 27th, 2007, 10:12 AM
Well, I work with microsoft all the time, so working for them really wouldn't be such a giant leap; ideologically that is. But like Adrian said in the first page, MS are very adept at taking the fun out of computing. The pay/hours offered at anything but the senior levels at MS aren't really what I had in mind when I started out with computers.

steven8
April 27th, 2007, 10:19 AM
I have 3 kids to feed, so I would if it were all that was available.

cunawarit
April 27th, 2007, 11:15 AM
Would I work for MS?

OH HELL YES!!!!! I’ve applied to MS jobs a couple of times, and not gotten it. I would LOVE to work for MS.