Back in 1997, I was living outside Seattle and getting ready to leave the Navy. I wanted to work for Microsoft. The internet was just taking off, and I figured it was the right time to find my next opportunity.
Job hunting back then was a much more manual process — you needed to know someone, or catch the right person’s attention inside a company. I spent time at the Seattle Public Library applying to everything I could find at Microsoft and Nintendo, the two biggest employers in town. Both ran IBM AS/400 systems as a core part of their operations, and thanks to some good mentors before the Navy, I knew that platform well enough to think I had a shot. I got interviews at both. Neither hired the 26-year-old version of me.
Fast forward to 2018. I saw an opening at Microsoft in Charlotte that looked like a good fit. By then I’d moved from AS/400 work to a long run as a Lotus Domino administrator, and about sixteen years in, I’d shifted into O365 Exchange administration — a role I genuinely enjoyed. I applied, and Microsoft called back. I went through the process, but I held out for a full-time position rather than a contract role. That meant two more rounds of interviews over the next year and a half before I finally joined as a full-time employee in January 2020.
It’s been a good move. The work is demanding — some days more than others — but it’s the most fairly and respectfully I’ve been treated in thirty years in this field. There’s a real investment in employees learning and growing, not just producing. When something goes wrong, the conversation is about what to improve next time, not about assigning blame. I work with a genuinely sharp, varied group of people, and I still look forward to the work.
Microsoft isn’t the right fit for everyone, and plenty of people move on to other things — that’s normal. For me, it’s been the right place. I like the pace of new technology, I like being part of that learning curve, and I like helping the companies we support make sense of it.
Almost thirty years into this career, that combination — good people, real problems, and something new to learn — is still what gets me out of bed.
Dad, Cyclist, Photographer, IT Engineer & Half Japanese by Choice