A New Era: PM -> SWE

tl;dr: As of last week, I am now a Software Engineer at Microsoft. My path to becoming a Program Manager at Microsoft was both unforeseen (by me) and entirely conventional. Until my early teens, my plan was to be this guy: I went to Space Camp and Space Academy, and spent years devouring endless booksContinue reading “A New Era: PM -> SWE”

Microsoft Employee’s Guide to Maximizing Donations

Perhaps the most impactful perk for employees of Microsoft is that the company will match charitable donations up to a pretty high annual limit ($15K/year), and will also match volunteering time with a donation at a solid hourly rate up to that same cap. Years ago, I volunteered at a food bank in Seattle, butContinue reading “Microsoft Employee’s Guide to Maximizing Donations”

My Next Opportunity

This is the farewell email I sent to my Edge teammates yesterday. IWebBrowser3::BeforeNavigate() When I left the Internet Explorer team in 2012 to work on Fiddler full-time, I did so with a measure of heartbreak, absolutely certain that I would never be quite as good at anything else. When I came back to the EdgeContinue reading “My Next Opportunity”

Thoughts on Impact

In this post, I talk a lot about Microsoft, but it’s not only applicable to Microsoft. It’s once again “Connect Season” at Microsoft, a biannual-ish period when Microsoft employees are tasked with filling out a document about their core priorities, key deliverables, and accomplishments over the past year, concluding with a look ahead to theirContinue reading “Thoughts on Impact”

Do Not Lie to Users

Multiple people working on Outlook.com thought this was a reasonable design. After a user deletes an email, then manually goes into the Deleted Items folder, then clicks Delete again, then acknowledges that they wish to Permanently Delete the deleted item: … the item is still not deleted. You can “Recover deleted items” from your Deleted items folder:Continue reading “Do Not Lie to Users”

DotNet Makes Me Sad, In Pictures

.NET Framework KB 3088956: Ouch, that sounds pretty severe. I guess I’d better go manually install a hotfix? Seriously? An email address and a CAPTCHA? Fine. Oh, an email delivered HTTP URL pointed at an executable file? That seems totes legit. Yup, definitely legit, it says “Microsoft” right there at the top! Sure, let’s putContinue reading “DotNet Makes Me Sad, In Pictures”