Saying goodbye to Microsoft

What I gained, lost & learned while working for Microsoft.

Many people ask — how does a person get into Microsoft? How is the interview? What is it like? For me it was everything for 3,5 years. Now, 18 months later, I feel ready to share my story and say a real goodbye.

I was interning at a marketing agency at the time after prior experience in a startup and was browsing job offers. Still in college at 23 and full of ideas and hopes for the future, I applied, just like that, for a MACH program — Microsoft Academy for College Hires. Recruitment process was long, had several stages and ended with an assessment center. Fun fact: I was asked a ‘tricky’ question about why are the sewer covers round. And another, not that fun, but more important fact I got a position in the Developer Experience and Evangelism Department (now CSE? or something else, it evolves all the time…) as an Audience Marketing Manager located in Warsaw, Poland. My role was to get people, especially in small IT companies, to try out Microsoft Azure (responsible for the breadth market). It was 5 years ago, cloud services were a novelty and the press wasn’t that great. I got serious e-mails from entrepreneurs where Microsoft was spelled ‘M$’.

One of the first things I noticed is that almost everyone working for Microsoft had this perfect life — a spouse, kids, nice houses, good cars. I wanted that too. Imagining that if I were to stay at this company, my life would become like theirs. (It was one of the…