o**********e
发帖数: 18403 | 1 Lots of anonymous comments, reposted here:
A REAL STORY about favoritism and dirty politics in the Exchange Test Team
and how it saved itself from the layoffs.
A few months back, EVP Qi Lu decides to reorg the Exchange team. The idea
was to get rid of the test discipline and decrease the “management layers”
. SDETs/SDET Leads will all be converted to Dev. Test Managers, Test
Directors and Test CVPs will be converted to IC’s or shown the door (
indirectly). Dev Leads become Dev Managers and get more reports. The test-to
-dev converts will also report to these new Dev Managers.
When the re-org came, Test Director Steve Connor made the best move of his
career. He knew that most of the test team was just dead wood and it was
just a matter of time before most of them get laid off. He somehow convinced
CVP Rajesh Jha to create an entirely new ‘Customer Engineering’ dev team
with a headcount of ~200. That saved his ass. When it was time for Steve to
build his team of directs (Group Dev Managers) and their directs (Dev
Managers) he picked them up ENTIRELY from the TEST discipline. In that, he
selected a few of his previous directs (Test Managers) he was closest with (
Satish Krishnan, Nagaraju Palla, etc) and asked them to select their own
team. These GDM’s created new teams from their old orgs. ‘Senior SDET
Leads’ will become ‘Dev Managers’ with 10 dev reports (again, all
previous SDETs) each.
Test Managers who weren’t as close to Steve, will be converted to Dev ICs
in the default org. They weren’t even considered for the ‘Dev Manager’ (
let alone GDM) position in the new team. Those positions are being taken up
by very average Senior SDET leads. I was close to one of these very capable
Test Manager. This is blatantly unfair and everybody across Exchange
acknowledges this obvious, “who you know” is more important than “what
you are capable of”. What a shame. Exchange used to be a great team within
Microsoft.
Here’s the kicker. An IC who was previously a Senior SDET and now a Senior
SDE jokes, “This has been a great summer. I became a senior dev without
interviewing for it. And, best of all, since my entire team was kept intact
with no real devs being hired, I am really only competing with other SDETs.
That keeps my reviews and work-life balance in good shape”. He is right and
it will stay that way because the dev’s don’t want to join Steve Connor’
s team.
I am now a part of the dev team and I’ll have to work my butt off to
compete with other devs and get promotions. As for Steve Connor’s entire
team, they got a free title without any added responsibilities. Unshamed
nepotism and sandbagging by the test org. Hope Rajesh / Qi / Satya are
listening… | o**********e
发帖数: 18403 | 2 Another example is ECO, which recently shifted to India to do some crappy
job and save the a$$ of folks who deserve the axe. | o**********e
发帖数: 18403 | 3 I heard Display Advertising was going to get hit hard. They are on the
chopping block since that function is going to be handled by a third party.
It's not a core competency. | o**********e
发帖数: 18403 | 4 Qi Lu's org is next on the firing line. It has been a money sink for too
long. | o**********e
发帖数: 18403 | 5 Anonymous said...
Qi lu's Org had layoffs as well. I heard the Long Island office under
Rajesh Jha has been completely closed (despite previous commitments in a
town hall that it wouldnt be closed). | o**********e
发帖数: 18403 | 6 exchange test team story is very real. i was a part of exchange and decided
to move out. when they started the datacenter team (headed by satish
krishnan) the culture went downhill across the discipline. i am not
surprised that engineers spend more time sucking up to their bosses rather
than honing their skills. the roi is much better. when i looked at people
getting to senior in the test org, it made me laugh.
i liked steve connor's leadership and i feel bad for him. his directs have
blurred the ground reality for him. the sdets in that team are below average
developers not capable of writing real code and building real products.
they can only do live site monitoring, deployments and reporting. sorry to
say this but it is true. | o**********e
发帖数: 18403 | 7 My comments: 很多infighting.撒剔牙的
白色恐怖很成功. 得看老中老美看不看
得透他这2桃杀3士的招数了. | o**********e
发帖数: 18403 | 8 WRT Source Depot: I think it's pretty clear that all the servers were pulled
offline as a precaution. I expect them to remain offline until all the new
permissions propagate through the AD forest. While I can understand
management's paranoia, I think the least they could have done was to send a
general email after the servers were taken down -- just as a courtesy. (So
much for all the "transparency" Satya keeps talking about.)
On another topic, I was appalled by Satya's performance at the QA event this
morning. More word salad from our self-styled philosopher king. It was
almost as if the firings yesterday didn't happen at all.
And that woman -- the 20-year MSFT veteran, who rambled on about sleeping
under her desk during Windows 95 launch. By the time she finished talking, I
thought my ears were going to bleed. And after all that, what was her
question to the God-King? "What books have you read recently?" Really?!
Two different people thanked Satya for being so "approachable", yet neither
one felt safe enough to ask a touch question.
"Transparency", my ass. | o**********e
发帖数: 18403 | 9 Ｔhere was one pointed question at the Q&A. Referring to BillG's 2002
security memo, somebody asked how customers are supposed to have faith in
the security of the OS platform if testing is being deemphasized.
Nadella brushed off the whole issue with some nonsense about the nature of
threats being different in a cloud-based world, so old models of
trustworthiness no longer apply. | o**********e
发帖数: 18403 | 10 So it was just announced that all vendors will need to leave after 18 months
for 6 month hiatus on 12/31/2015 in an effort to protect Microsoft IP.
So...90,000 vendors currently. That means let's say 60,000 will still be
here in 18 months and so on Jan 1st of 2016... 60,000 people with Microsoft
IP in their heads will walk out the door....and go find work elsewhere.
Stupid. Procurement should be summarily fired for this kind of negative "
value add" | o**********e
发帖数: 18403 | 11 Someone sure is working hard to 害老中:
Anonymous said...
most of the vendors these days are from chinese companies and not indian
outsourcing companies. Chinese companies mostly operate on model of most of
the team off shore and handful of folks in redmond.
Anonymous said...
"Microsoft are awarding hundreds of millions in contracts to Infosys,
Tata Consulting and HCL!"
Microsoft actually makes more money by selling to and through these
companies. | o**********e
发帖数: 18403 | 12 Anonymous said...
Former 'Softie here with a couple observations.
The 6-month break for vendors is going to be a disaster for some groups. I
predict it may get rescinded or pushed back as the deadline approaches.
My wife was a v- dev for the last few years (she just left for an FTE offer
elsewhere). In her origination, almost ALL of the actual production is done
by vendors, which number as many as FTEs. The FTEs are always busy all day
with meetings, org level tasks and politics and rely on the output of their
vendors to keep the group humming along.
The catch is that for much of what they do there is a long ramp up needed
before new people understand the processes and issues in enough detail. For
what my wife (and many others) did, it takes about 3-4 months to onboard a
new person. Is someone going to approve the budget for another set of
vendors to come on payroll Sept 1st, 2015 and tie up all the current v-
people while they train their replacements for the next 4 months to avoid
things grinding to halt on Jan 1? And if replacements are trained, the
people leaving are not going to expect, nor want, to come back and a huge
amount of tribal knowledge gets lost all at once.
The other thing I see is that MSFT is losing some of its grip on the
enterprise and probably doesn't realize it. Windows 8 and 8.1 have been an
disaster in the corporate world for reasons expressed already, and I'm not
seeing anything that leads me to expect a serious turn around with windows 9.
I started a new job a year ago as a dev in a Fortune 50 company. I was
issued a MacBook pro, as is everyone else, even though I am not doing iOS or
OS X development. Everyone in the company has a Macbook. Everyone.
EveryFarkingOne. Lots of of managers and execs use iPads everyday for work
as well. The company is deliberately transitioning away from Windows. My
group recently needed a Windows laptop to run an external vendor utility
that used custom HW drivers. We had to jump through major hoops to get one.
Our IT dept's normal response to Windows requests is to use VMWare or
Parallels with an image of Win 7 Enterprise. Win8 not supported. Office (Mac
) is still standard, and they seem happy with Exchange for corporate email,
and I have no idea what runs our data centers, but that's still tens of
thousands of Windows OS licenses that have slipped away, and I don't see
coming back.
I didn't see anything from Satya that make me believe the trends I'm seeing
are going to turn around and strengthen Microsoft in the corporate world.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014 1:34:00 PM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Any more news what the criteria was for selecting who to layoff?
Tuesday, July 22, 2014 2:01:00 PM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
What's new on Monday/Tuesday? I heard some M2s are turned to leads or ICs in
SigMa. What is going on in SNAP?
Tuesday, July 22, 2014 2:03:00 PM
Anonymous said...
I work in OSG and several of my colleagues who were let go were not low
performers or superfluous; we are now faced with substantial gaps that will
put critical projects in holding pattern due to those losses.
I do not (for one second) believe OSG's cuts are done.
On a side note, any word about Dynamics (cuts or future cuts)?
Tuesday, July 22, 2014 11:47:00 PM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I am working with a reputed firm in Bay area and i have interviewed couple
of microsoft engineers, and all of them were no hires pretty much from
everyone in the panel including me. What i see is
1. arrogance.
2. questions like when will i become a manager.
3. too much into microsoft technologies - we use c++, java on linux.
4. The attitude - "Hey i come from Microsoft hire me"
Very wrong - time to reset expectations and get back to reality. I am sure
all those layed off will certainly get great jobs, but remember you are who
you are and the work you put for your organization is for your growth too,
not just for the org. You are free to leave whenever you want and so is the
org allowed to leave you whenever it wants.
If you put that into mind that your job is always temporary, your thoughts
will improve and you will open up your mind to the world and think about the
greater good. You will ignore internal politics and you will perform for
your satisfaction, not for ratings.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014 11:50:00 PM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Good to have you back mini. As usual, you are speaking to the very core of
the concerns and challenges. The cuts should be addressed now as opposed to
dragging this out over the next year. This impacts morale, WHI, innovation,
and productivity. What happened to transparency at MS?? Is Microsoft still
considered a great place to work?
Wednesday, July 23, 2014 2:48:00 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Is anyone aware of any lay off in Hyderabad (IDC or MSIT)??
Wednesday, July 23, 2014 3:43:00 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
There are happening conversations that the count is significantly more than
18k. I guess performance management may be a separate exercise. If around 12
.5 is only Nokia overlap, Win/Xbox teams downsizing, Marketing and Finance
one, Increasing the span/depth and cutting short the manager count will be
easily accounting to rest of 18k. So the performance management batch, and
SDET downsizing across other teams etc. and other restricting effort may be
separate count. I believe the company may be looking for more and more. What
do you think? BTW, no big heads rolling yet? not even at a GM/Director
level.. Strange.. Potentially spin up a offshore team with one GM
compensation package.... Isn't it? | s*******h
发帖数: 3219 | | o**********e
发帖数: 18403 | 14 很有料. 微软老中应该都看看.
mini 就是微软的匿名 watercooler.
我在找别的公司有没有这样的匿名watercooler. |
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