My Romance with Microsoft

After spending 20+ years in various engineering roles at Microsoft - first in Redmond and then at Hyderabad, India - I quit this great company about 6 months ago. Over the years, I have been asked many times about what working at Microsoft is like; what makes so many people stick with the company for long tenures; what the perspectives from inside are; etc. I decided to write this article at this juncture, after about 6 months of being out of Microsoft and just before I start my next gig with another big gun of the industry. I have tried to describe my experiences in as unbiased manner as humanly possible. I will try to be as brief as possible but given the long tenure and variety of roles and experiences I had, it may turn out to be longer than normal.

My journey

I started my Microsoft journey in 1998 at corporate HQ as a SQL DBA responsible for administration of 1000+ SQL servers driving mission and business critical applications running the business of Microsoft. Though I officially joined as an individual contributor, from day one, I was the de-facto lead of the team and very soon I ended up with the Manager word in the title and people management responsibilities. I built a globally distributed engineering team spread across Redmond, Dublin, and Singapore. I received two Gold Star awards (best recognition and reward for engineers in those days) in the first 4 years. I had a strong desire though to return to India. In late 2002, I took the plunge to move to India literally without a defined role to jumpstart the setting up of Global Development Centre in Hyderabad for the then Microsoft IT organization. I had the distinction of being the first employee of this new fledgling organization in India. Over the years, in various leadership roles, I contributed to the success and growth of MS IT India. At one point, we had 1200+ full time engineers and another 3000+ consultants/contractors working out of Hyderabad office. Later on, I moved to Universal Store organization within Windows and Devices division and, finally before my exit, I was a General Manager in Cloud and Artificial Intelligence division. Had I stayed a bit longer, my next promotion (if and when it came) would have taken me to Partner level, a coveted milestone for engineering leaders at Microsoft. It was not to be though and I quit before achieving this milestone.

Summary of my experience

For 99% of the days, I had great time at Microsoft. If there is one phrase I have to use to describe Microsoft, it would be GREAT FOR EMPLOYEEs. The kind of people I have worked with, the constant learnings that I have gained, the friends and network I have made over the years, the stimulating discussions I have had - there is this endless list - which made almost every day of this journey amazingly enriching. Microsoft has played a big role in making me who I am today. And, I truly thank all my fellow travellers on this journey for making it so exciting and fulfilling.

There are always two sides of the coin though and while 99% of experiences were great, there were some unhappy and frustrating moments also. In the subsequent paragraphs, I will try to bring up my perspectives on some of these not-so-great experiences also.

In this post, I am focusing on people and culture aspect of my experience at Microsoft. Sometime later, may be, I'll chip in with my take on technology and engineering aspects as well.

People and Culture

Undoubtedly Microsoft is one of the best companies to work for from an employee's perspective. Compensation and benefits packages, at all levels, are among the best in industry. Employees' comfort and amenities across Microsoft offices are among the best in the world. Office ambience, entertainment, outdoor sports, indoor games, gym, food, yoga, aerobics, meditation, attention to employees' well-being - you name it and you'll find Microsoft offices well equipped to pamper the employees. Annual holiday party, morale and off-site events are memorable. Birthdays, anniversaries, achievements, welcomes, farewells are celebrated with genuine happiness, fun, and excitement. You get access to best resources in terms of training, conferences, seminars,. etc. around the world. You have unlimited access to software and internal resources to develop your skills and keep yourself ahead of the game. HR team is well staffed and enabled. Processes are in place to help employees in need. Support staff is always there to help.

More importantly, empathy towards employees and general professionalism with a distinct ethos helps employees remain motivated to give their best. Managers and leaders are constantly trained and required to give utmost importance to employees' career development, growth, and realization of full potential. While hierarchy is there to help define accountability and achieve greater results, as far as communication goes, there is normally free flow of exchange of opinions, views, and ideas up and down the chain as well as side ways. It is not uncommon to see a manager and a direct report being at the same level and, in some cases, a manger can have a direct report higher/senior than the manager himself/herself. Employees are encouraged for lateral movements across groups and disciplines. It is also not uncommon to see people moving from individual contributor to people manager roles and vice versa. Development and retention of employees is as important to the company as hiring the best from industry and campuses (top engineering and business schools). An employee is owner and driver of his/her career at Microsoft while the system and leadership act as enablers in this endeavour. Innovation, creativity, simplification, optimization, and modernization are encouraged and expected for a faster career growth.

Performance assessment, promotions, and rewards are an integral part of people development process. Typically, goals are set for individuals on an annual basis comensurate with the level and role of the individual. Managers and organization leaders conduct informal perople discussion and reviews on a regular cadence 2-4 times a year. Apart from regular 1:1 discussions, there are two formal discussions in an year. The mid-year discussion is kind of a checkpoint on how things are going and any course corrections, if needed. Annual review is when, based on your performance, you get rewarded with merit increase, bonus, stock awards and promotions (as needed). Promotions can happen outside the annual review window also depending on employee's readiness and organizational needs. It is not common but double promotions can also happen. Given that Microsoft attracts and recruits some of the best talent at all levels, the differentiation between performance of employees becomes a very challenging and interesting responsibility for managers and leaders. Almost everyone meets the WHAT part of the goal. Hence, HOW part of the result becomes crucial in differentiating. Data about an individual's own impact, his/her contributions to others' success, his/her leveraging/reusing others' work to achieve results, and his/her own development is extensively used to decide the performance and potential of an engineer. In addition, people managers are also assessed based on their performance in improving organization health, alignemnt to strategy, people management, talent development, etc.While curve-fitting is officially not mandatory any more, the fact that a leader has to work within a fixed budget for rewards distribution for his/her team every year and he/she has to magnify the difference in rewards disproportionate to the difference in performance, practically a leader does end up with some sort of curve-fitting. From 2007 to 2013, there was strict enforcement of managing-out mandate for low performers. The things have started to losen out little bit since then and managers now get more discretion and control in doing their bit in helping employees make turn around. I personally liked this flexibility and I'm sure most of the senior managers who are sort of wedded to the original Microsoft values like this shift.

Frequent organization restructuring is another dimension of life at Microsoft. A big reorganization every two year and multiple smaller reorganizations in between is the norm. The frequent reorganizations not only have significant impact on morale and results, these reorganizations can make or break your career if you are in middle or senior leadership roles. While restructuring is needed at times to stimulate new thinking, in my personal opinion, the frequency of reorganizations and impact thereof on people is one of the not-so-talked-about disruptors in one's leadership journey wihin the company. The worst part of the big reorganizations is that it takes months to materialize and this period of uncertainty, rumour mills, speculation etc. does have a negative impact while we continue to say that continuity must be maintained.

There is also this unofficial 'pecking order' of teams and leaders which informally gets factored in forming an impression of whether someone/something is in or out of vogue.This may not be a unique phenomenon in Microsoft but it does play in minds of people. And, culturally, it is wide-spread at every level. Though such artificial walls and orders are in decline over the last few years, they are still prevalent. One day, a program is non-strategic and, as a corollary, engineers working on such a program are not very technical because it is owned by a division/team in lower part of this pecking order. Next day, a reorg moves the program to another division and, overnight, the program and engineers become strategic. If you are working for leader X, you are great. If you move to work for a different leader or in a different role, may be out of your own will, some may perceive it as if your performance is not good or you are no longer great. If Windows is the most influential division at a point, and if you are part of Windows division, you have earned the right to think of engineer doing similar thing in other teams as someone from another species.

Work at every level is equally important but there are two coveted milestones in the journey of engineers at Micosoft - Principal (L65) and Partner (L68). Principal level is an inflection point when you make the transition from contributor and influencer at team level to playing role in shaping the direction/roadmap for broader organization in a division. Partner level, probably top 1-2% of the workforce across the company, is in a way a bench for senior leadership. At this level, your influence is at the division and/or company level. To get promoted to Partner level, in addition to a proven track record of individual, two additional conditions must be met .. the division you are part of should have a need for additional partner and two different Corporate Vice Presidents, not part of immediate management chain, must have visibility and must endorse such promotion.

For most part, Microsoft is truly one of the best companies to work for. However, at the end, we are talking about and dealing with individuals. Entities tasked with making thngs work are not robots. Every individual (including managers and leaders) has unique view, thought process, biases, filters, etc. And hence, while generally the system works as expected and 90+% of the time, the experience is amazingly good, there are exceptions to the norm also

Until recently, Microsoft was a collection of 'smaller businesses' built purely by strong individuals and run as separate entities. While the walls are breaking, the individual-centric culture emanating out of the way Microsoft has evolved is still some way to go before being replaced by One Microsoft culture. Reorganizations (too frequent in my view) coupled with pecking order become bigger disruptors because of conflicts in this scenario. At times, HR teams also start prioritizing 'alignment with business leader' over what is the best from employees' and Microsoft values perspective

Criteria for Partner level promotions remains somewhat a mystery. For the same individual, a CVP may choose to hilight a strength to justify elevation while another leader may opt to look for weaknesses to delay/deny the promotion. An organization, due to geopolitic, may feel the need to promote 5 Principals to Partner level and, if you happen to be there at the right time and right place, you may get lucky. On the other hand, if you are in one of the divisions which already has many partners, you may have to wait for quite some time (even 10 years) to get promoted in that division. It may be even more risky to change groups because you might have to start from scratch in building your brand in the new division. If you take technical acumen (and performance thereof) and organizational leadership as two required pillars for success at this level, I have seen 'very bad managers' being promoted to partner level because of strong technical chops. And, vice versa, people who have thrown their technical hat in the wilderness many years ago, may get promoted because of strong organizational skills. This is all great and I love it. But the other side of the coin becomes ugly and the reason for many to quit Microsoft just short of this level.

Microsoft invests quite a lot in leadership development. The trainings and guardrails do help in managers and leaders continuously improving and striving for the best. However, individuals are individuals at the end of the day. There is no dearth of managers, even at partner levels and above, who demonstrate behaviours and actions not in line with company's aspire-to culture. I have seen leaders, who would ask you to help in breaking informal ingroup/outgroup strcutures (hindering diversity and inclusion in everyday working of the groups), turn around and act as biggest promoters of such non-inclusive and faction-creating behaviours in their own group. I have seen leaders who start the conversation with 'To tell you honestly/transparently...' but the moment you hear such a prelude, you know what is coming is not complete truth. There are leaders who will randomize and disrupt the teams and send good talent on elusive leather-hunt in anticipation of an impending re-org knowing very well that nothing is done untill it is done. There are managers who, even after all the trainings, would not mind talking about an individual's performance in public or with people who are not supposed to know it. Some would send their 'man' to check with team members as to how a manager is doing instead of doing that himself or herself. And, lately I have also come across leaders who do not even care about a decent farewell/send-off to their own team members with great contribution to success of Microsoft.

At the end of it all, I believe, the exceptions are not the norm. Microsoft is a great company to build an enriching long-term career. I had an amazing experience and I wish the company and all the current and future Microsofties a great ride ahead.