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will my current level & salary impact Microsoft's offer?

There are always 2 kinds misunderstanding about Microsoft's offer...

The first one is:
If I'm currently earning, I think it's much lower than the market pay, will I get a lower pay compares with other peers?
Second is: If my work experience is less than peers for same position, will I get ....?
Some candidates tend to think so.

Actually it's not. As a genius in software industry, we are not beating competitors, providing outstanding service by lower the cost, instead, value people, invest on their future, believe we are competitive because of we have talents with high innovation. I said so because not all of the software companies do.

So, the factor will impact your salary level is the competency & potential for future development, i.e leadership & team management etc. There is nothing to do with your current income.
The basic phylosophy is treat people fair, and don't make use of their disadvantages.

tags: interview tips career opportunity

@ 20070801 06:20:00 with 0 comments read more...

Searching on the sea

On conversation with the SQL Shanghai team's product manager, we talked about the genious on the top of, within Microsoft. And inevitablely, Jim Gray's mentioned.

I feel so regret about this mysterious missing, feel like I have met him before I joined, the Turing winner in 1998.
All the best wishes to him.

You could get the full story out of:
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-08/ff_jimgray?currentPage=1

Steve Silberman 07.23.07 | 2:00 AM

It looked like a fine day for a sail. On Sunday, January 28, 2007, Microsoft researcher Jim Gray woke up on his boat, a red 40-foot fiberglass cruiser called Tenacious. The water in Gashouse Cove, a cozy marina in San Francisco Bay, was nearly flat. The 63-year-old programmer phoned his wife, Donna Carnes, who was on an annual vacation with friends in Wisconsin. He said he was heading out to the Farallon Islands, a wildlife refuge 27 miles offshore, to scatter the ashes of his mother, Ann, who died in October.

As Gray steered out through the Golden Gate to the open ocean, both tide and wind were in his favor. At 10:30 am, he called Carnes again and said that he was approaching a channel marker buoy 15 miles out. She asked him if he was wearing his harness; single-handed sailors can drown if a wave pitches them overboard and the ship sails on. "Yes, dear," he replied, saying that he would get in touch as soon as Tenacious came back into range.

A few minutes later, he left an upbeat voicemail for his daughter, Heather, in Santa Barbara. "I'm taking Granny out to her final resting place. I'm surrounded by dolphins out here. It's a little cloudy but very pleasant. No ...

tags: geek legend

@ 20070730 06:10:00 with 0 comments read more...

在微软的工作的若干小细节：

As I mentioned in the day before yesterday's blog, yesterday is Laptop free day, I'm not going to bring any work to home.
While the truth turned out is, on waiting for the <transformer> in the cinema, I opened laptop again.
You could imagine what looks like from my GF's face. Yes, I'm hopeless, in trying not to fall in with Microsoft.

细节一：
经理为其他员工开门与让路。
在公司里门禁比较多，经常碰到的是经理主动为其它员工开门，让路。

细节二：
庆祝生存一周年。
员工在微软工作满一周年后主动发邮件给所有人，告诉大家他已经工作满一周年，并且在他的座位上准备了小吃与零食若干，大家可以与他一起庆祝。

细节三：
高级经理与其他员工坐一块儿。
从team lead到director，都不用独立的办公室。某个普通员工边上坐的可能就是个高级产品经理，办公设施完全一样，一转身可以看到对方的一举一动。

细节四：
主动分享心得。
有了一定工作经验的员工（不论年限长短），可以给大家发个meeting request说，我想在何时做一个关于如何做好test的演讲，有兴趣的可以来听，主题主要包括。。。
微软也会从总部不定期地派遣马可孛罗（不是面包，而是传播文化的使者）-有经验的工程师到国内来工作一段时间，培养团队的成员。（想当上马可孛罗需要在内部申请并且通过内部面试）

细节五：
穿出最舒适的自己。
不会看到奇装异服的员工，更不会看到穿得公整笔挺的员工，从下至上。 ...

tags: working in MS MS culture

@ 20070727 06:34:00 with 2 comments read more...

20 mins, 10 km.

I was on rolling around 9PM tonight, cross around a dozen blocks, in 20 mins, around 10 km.
This is first could be called excise since join Microsoft, am I too busy, or because it's always too hot? or too much rain?
Nah, all execuses.

I didn't roller that fast today, but it's really fun, cross the lanes, watching people sitting under the trees, eating water melons and watching soccers...don't have to think too much about work, a good way to relax...

When I back, seems like I lost 1L sweets..

I attached a pic which took on 20040718 17:56, 36 months ago, looks quite different from at office :-P

tags: roller hobby

@ 20070726 06:25:00 with 0 comments read more...

Career advice - from executive speech (the end)

Learn from past experience

Don’t’ be afraid to make mistakes , for many people, we tend to get, what if we fail, what if we are making a mistake and not doing the right thing, and that’s actually not good, because sometimes the best way to know whether something is going to work is to actually try and go back and say why it didn’t work, maybe just one little part of that will go wrong thing and changing that.

Don’t worry about fail, if you making the same mistake 3 times then worried (laugh).

Making a mistake once is really nothing to worry about.

I wouldn’t allow somebody to if I’m a manager ,hey you know, I just feel like we writing messenger core platform, just because I think I can make that nicer and find out that 3 weeks messenger doesn’t work and hundreds of millions of users. I probably wouldn’t allow that somebody to make that kinds of mistakes.

But most the time, when we do something, if we don’t try, we wont ever know.

Innovation

When talk about innovation, I actually for my team, I have set up a commitment, and one of the commitment is about innovation, it’s not just about product innovation, I’d like to have people think about some new innovation on the products, on the features, some great idea, somebody helps the team to win.

But also it can be in the area of process, what about test driven development, what about a different process, the way I test the code, the way I do the usability study, whatever I did, just always be thinking about new ways of trying things. Or e ...

tags: career life career advice

@ 20070725 08:03:00 with 0 comments read more...

balance life & work

I was about to watch the "transformer" with friend, and as usual, checked mailbox after supper, found and interview set on 8:30PM.
It's always hard to balance between life & work.

Tomorrow night you are not going to see my "green face" on communicator or MSN, 'cause my gf's birthday.

tags: career life

@ 20070725 06:09:00 with 1 comments read more...

Freedo & his space