Backwards and Forwards
I’m not sure what the me from 3 years ago, just entering Rose would make of me now. I came into Rose with the goal of working as what I now know is called an SDE (Software Development Engineer) at Microsoft. Basically, I wanted to be an awesome programmer. 3 years later, I’m looking to be a project manager at Microsoft. 3 years ago, I had no intention of ever being any sort of manager. So what happened?
Well, for starters, I realized that I wasn’t that great of a programmer. I’m competent now, but winter of freshman year, I really slipped up with some concepts in CSSE220 and ended up not doing so well in the class. That class nearly broke me–I considered switching majors (to math), but I decided to give it one more chance in the fall of sophmore year before I completely gave up my dreams of working with computer software. At the advice of my advisor that spring, since I was looking at doing some form of international experience at the beginning of Junior Year (starting in July and going through November in someplace like Australia), it was suggested I take 371, as I’d likely not find a similar class abroad. I got special permissions to take the course–I hadn’t taken CSSE230, but the course was mostly writing and didn’t require programming knowledge. So I took it–felt way out of my depth with the first assignment, but once I got my weird panic in check, I did well on the assignment and continued with the class. Without that class, I wouldn’t have met my future boss (Nick Ohrn), and I probably wouldn’t have learned that I’m basically awesome when it comes to requirements documentation. That class re-ignited my passion for Software Engineering–I realized that there are more stages that just coding to professional software development and that I could find a place even if my coding skills weren’t as strong as some of my peers.
I took CSSE372 that year, too–it didn’t seem fair to abandon my project teammate in the next class if the project was to continue. Then it was announced that projects would be switching between quarters, as would the teams. My new teammate was the project manager for our project, and didn’t do the best job with it–I remember getting emails 5 minutes apart, one praising my work and the other telling me to step it up. It was mixed messages, to say the least. There were a lot of times where I felt I could have done a better job, but we did the best job we could and finished the course. If nothing else, I learned where to improve my own skills when leading a project. That’s about the time I realized I wanted to be what Microsoft calls a Program Manager–I need to be knowledgeable about code and what developers are capable, but my strengths lie more in defining the project’s scope and requirements and keeping people on task so that things get done on time and under budget.
The career fair was this past Wednesday, and I had a pretty good outcome from it. One of the companies I’m looking at seemed really confused by my applying for what they call a PM, though–they don’t consider it a technical position. The rep was almost nasty with me, trying to force me to apply for the software developer position instead and claiming that they only hire business majors for the position. I knew for a fact their website listed the position under software jobs (also noting it was open to “all majors”) and that what the job entailed was a perfect fit with what I had been doing this summer, but was so flustered by her attitude that I didn’t bring it up. I was offered an interview on the spot, and I accepted her offer–it was the first time that had happened at a career fair for me, so I was excited to get that. The next day, I was fortunate enough to interview with the other person from the company at the fair–one of their developers. I made sure he knew I was interested in the PM position, and although he was more receptive when I gave him my reasons, he still seemed skeptical that someone “with as much technical knowledge as [me]” would want this non-technical job. I tried my best to explain to him the benefits of having a technical person who can “speak customer” in this role would be–someone like this can be an advocate for the customer’s needs with developers and an advocate for the developer’s limitations with the customer. I’m not sure I’m the person the company’s looking for, but I’ve been invited to the next step of the process. I guess we’ll see.
On another note, when I got back from the career fair, I had an invitation to interview by phone with Microsoft waiting for me–I had worried with them not being at the career fair my application would be lost in the pile of all the other online applicants. Here’s hoping that one goes well–I’d love to get to second round with them this year.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Ben, that sounds like a great outcome from the career fair. I look forward to hearing more about what happens with Microsoft.
October 14th, 2009 at 8:57 am
@Nick — I’m going to try and be as open and honest about the hiring process as I can, but I’m also going to be careful about how much I say in real-time — I don’t want to jinx myself out of a job by saying something here I’m not necessarily allowed to. Plus, some of this stuff will be better in hindsight, anyways.