2004 May 10, 10:37Looking around the Microsoft campus it was easy to tell people who were there for an interview from the programmers who worked there. All of the people who were dressed formally, a suit or tie was an
obvious sign, were there for an interview. I spent my time between interviews talking to other over dressed people between interviews. The usual topics of conversation included name, city of origin,
computer science background, and the crazy problems our interviewers had asked us. Going through these topics with one such person, who incidentally was the only woman I saw interviewing, I asked
what school she was attending. She told me she was just finishing her Masters in Computer Science at
[some college] and I told her where I was from. She then asked me, "You have your
Doctorate in Computer Science?" "No," I said, "My Bachelors... I'm working on my Bachelors." "Oh," she said, "Well you look very mature." I'm fairly certain that's a first for me -- being told I look
"very mature" that is. Unfortunately, at that point my tram showed up and I had to travel to a different building. Now I'm left wondering what made me look mature. It could have been the gel or the
slacks or the tucked in shirt. The day previous while dressed casually, hanging out with my friend Jeannie, some of her friends thought I was her age, about eight years older. The common element
between my two appearances were my new black dressy-ish shoes. Maybe its just that easy.
2004 Apr 22, 3:52I actually have something to say which I thought would be appropriate for the LiveJournal format. Why I haven't posted to the LiveJournal for such a great length of time can be saved for later. I
spent Easter weekend and the Monday following, in Washington, the state. Microsoft paid for me to fly up and stay in Washington so I could do the technical portion of the interview with them. I hung
out with my friend Jeannie and she showed me all around Seattle on Saturday and Sunday. Each night we had somewhat expensive dinners, all paid for by Microsoft. It was cool. On Sunday I stayed at a
nice hotel in Redmond and the next morning I spent just short of eight hours being interviewed by five different people from different groups within Microsoft. Each sub interview consisted of two
portions. First there was the general portion where they would ask me why I wanted to work there, ask about my previous experience, and those sort of non technical questions. The second portion would
take the majority of the time and it would be me trying to solve some technical problem they'd present. By the end of the interview my hands were gray with dry erase marker ink because apparently
everybody's got a whiteboard and they all want me to write code on them. I have to go to class soon and I might post some more stories related to this trip, but mostly I wanted to say that last week
I received a great offer from them and I'll probably be moving up to Washington sometime (weeks or months?) after graduation. Also, I've changed my AIM name from SequelGuy to SequelDave. My email
address will also have to change soon, but I don't know to what it will change.
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