Microsoft, 3 Months In
It’s been ~3 months since Deis officially joined the Microsoft Azure containers team.
Recently I posted a link on the /r/golang subreddit announcing that Microsoft is hiring Go engineers to work on Kubernetes. The responses were overwhelmingly positive, and I had the chance to reflect on what our culture is like for one Redditor who asked in a DM. I gave them a summary of how we do our work, and thought it would be useful to share publicly so here it is.
We are very practical and realistic, and generally like to think about a new project or feature before diving in.
I heard recently, outside of work, that there are 3 ways to implement software - the way that takes 200 hours, the way that takes 100 hours, and the way that takes 7 hours.
I believe that regardless of which way you take, you can end up with the same core functionality, but if you take the 7 hour approach, you’ll have a good foundation to build on much sooner. We prefer taking the 7 hour approach to build a good foundation or proving out an idea.
As for the interpersonal side of things, we like to joke with each other and share the parts of our non-work lives that we’re comfortable with.
(Note: “3 ways to implement software” was mentioned by David Heinemeier Hansson in an interview. I hope I remember correctly exactly what he said, but I know I got the “spirit” of it correct!)
As I reflect more on how we work, I think about how lucky I am to be here.
The “old” Deis office is in Boulder, CO. It’s still there, but it’s a Microsoft office now. Microsoft HQ is based in Redmond, WA, as you probably know. But overall, our little group acts and works as a distributed team.
Some of us are based in Boulder, many that we work with are in Redmond, there’s a little group of us in the San Francisco bay area (represent!), and others are scattered around the US and Canada. We communicate with each other over Slack, video chats, GitHub, and other mediums. And whenever we can, we get together for off-sites and conferences and have a blast (these events are where you’ll find the most groan-worthy puns per-capita)!
As clichéd as it sounds, to me this team feels like part of the family.