Six Months In, Reaching the Beginning

Two weeks ago marked my 6 month anniversary at Microsoft. Everybody is asking me what it's been like, what I've enjoyed, what I haven't, but the truth is, I've just gotten to the beginning.

Microsoft, like almost any other technology company, operates in a cyclical release cycle. A list of features is drawn up, they are coded, and then they are released; repeat ad naseum. For Windows Live, four of these release cycles comprise a wave. Before the beginning of each new wave, a period of time is put into development of internal infrastructure, system and operations improvements, and general readiness for the next wave. In August, when I onboarded, we were completing a milestone, and entering this internal development period. So the first two months of my job was ramping up on Hotmail, the Wave 4 release, and a few service packs and the next three were internal development, which consisted of many different tasks in and of itself. Now, as we enter our new phase of coding, I'm experiencing what the whole process is supposed to look like from the beginning. The last three weeks have been a flurry of planning, review, and meetings, unlike anything I've seen yet. And now we begin coding. So, six months in, I've finally gotten to the beginning.

I feel it's similar in my personal life, as well. I found a church home not too long after arriving, but it's taken time to begin to feel personally connected and to start making friends. Three weeks ago, I enrolled in a "start group", where 30-40 of us meet for six weeks to watch a DVD curriculum and discuss. I've started getting out of the house to hang out with people from church and people I've met from Stanford. I'm beginning to get to know them, and hoping to begin the process of forming the deep, personal relationships I've been lacking since coming out here.

There's most certainly been growth. I've learned about scale, from the size of Microsoft itself to the technical difficulties of running one of the world's largest web services to the sheer geographical size of the United States of America. I've learned about corporate culture, Californian culture, and a little bit more about nerd culture. And I've learned more about who I strive to be, my strengths and weaknesses, what motivates me, and how I interact with others. But this is still the beginning of that process. And that's okay, because I do believe the quote "The secret to a rich life is to have more beginnings than endings."