Interview Diary - Microsoft 2005

When we moved, jobless and homeless, to Beijing in April 2005 I didn’t really have a plan. I was burned out on tech and thought I could take a couple of years to try different things before returning to the states. After a couple of months of boredom and negative case flow, my anxiety got me looking for a job. I spoke with an old boss who was helping establish the Google office in Beijing. They were not quite ready for me and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t ready for them. A family friend pointed me at Microsoft and even though I didn’t think I had much of a chance, I sent her my resume. A technical phone screen ensued. I don’t remember the details of the phone screen but remember at the end the interviewer (Jian?) said in response to my second question that there was no need to ask more questions, I had already passed. The next day or so I received an onsite interview invitation.

I remember the interviews of that day, if not everyone’s name, nor the details. The first interviewer, I would later learn, studied body language. Somehow, me of the horrible body language, passed. The second interviewer gave me some kind of system diagram and asked me what the biggest problem was. I immediately said latency and somehow this was the perfect answer. We made small talk for most of the remaining time. 2 for 2. My lunch interview was with Jay Herbison, and we ate in the Japanese restaurant in the basement of Sigma building. Jay was a bit annoyed. The lunch interview was scheduled at the last minute and it wasn’t the first time that happened. As someone who would go on to do many, many interviews, I understand the frustration. Jay grilled me. It was hard to tell if I was doing “ok”. The questions were on some Windows programming stuff which I didn’t know a lot about - my most recent experience was in Java. I remember unsuccessfully trying to make small talk about life in Beijing. After lunch, I was brought to Stephen Siu’s office. He asked me a large design/architecture question and I white boarded a system I had once implemented tailored to his specifics. This seemed to do wonders. I was at least 3 of 4, maybe 4 of 4 at this point. Then to Sun Shaw’s office and he asked me to design an automatic system for money conversion. I struggled with the design but the reason I failed the interview was as a PM candidate, I didn’t explore the business case. With that, my interview day was over and the recruiter saw me out with a “will be in touch”. I had for sure failed the most important interview, but wasn’t sure about it at the time. A few days later, the recruiter called me and asked me to come in for another interview. It turned out to be with another director, Baogang Yao, and we had a video call since he was in Redmond for the week. It went “ok” from what I can remember. Something about web applications and Javascript. I was not quite on the same page understanding his questions which we both chalked up to being on video. The recruiter saw me out again and that was that. But it wasn’t. On my walk to the subway, the recruiter called and asked me to return to the office for another interview. I wanted to say, “how about another day” since I was already checked out but it was clear it was an interview I could not say no to. Back in the office, the recruiter’s seriousness ramped up as she led me to the general manager’s office - Hongjiang Zhang. I took a seat outside and after a few minutes was escorted into the large, dark, office. I was expecting the toughest interview yet but he was in selling mode - telling me how my experience would be helpful to the organization. I left thinking I got the job. And I did. The offer came in the next day or two. It was for 380K RMB. My wife was not impressed, thinking it was too low of an offer given my background. To her, MS was just a normal company. To me, it was my dream job, and I accepted the offer.

In deference to my experience they gave me Senior Program Manager title even though my pay level was that of PMII.

It’s funny how memory works. For years after this interview, I would replay the details in my head. Question by question. Nit picking the questions and answers in my head. Now, 20 years later, I only remember bits and pieces and sentiments. Passing the interview was a surprise. I came to think they must have been desperate for someone technical who could run a project. Either way, it is one of my most significant career highlights.