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May 7, 2003
Knowledge Accessiblity
One of the things I like most about working at Microsoft is how there's a huge human knowledge base. In every building there are managers who dremt up exciting projects, architects who sketched them out, and a ton of developers and testers who made it a reality. The other great thing is how readily they are willing to share this knowledge. Just about every week presentations and seminars are held about different products and emerging technologies, and they're open to every employee (seating is limited, so you need to sign up early).
Today I sat through a presentation about the .NET CLR (the product I'm working on). The speaker was one of the head program managers for the product. Although I already knew most of what was covered (hey, I had to do some research before starting), it was nice to have explained how all the parts fit together.
I think one of Microsoft's strengths is it's ability to recruit some brilliant people (no, I'm not talking about myself), and their willingness to make those people's knowledge accessible to everyone in the company. After all, knowledgeable employees are good employees.
This contrasts sharply with some of the other companies I worked at, where I didn't know what the guy in the cubicle next to me was working on, let alone other teams.
And no, I'm not praising Microsoft simply because they pay me. Although that does help...