Hi Virgil, Late to the thread, but I have to disagree with you. Microsoft did not employ exclusively experienced programmers, I had two other Companies (ICL and HP Labs) under my belt before I went to Microsoft, yes I relocated from the UK to Washington, but the interview process was more about what you were capable of rather than what you knew (My tests were on C, MASM, Unix and compilers and assemblers in general).
There was as you allude to hero worship within MS towards BG and others, but the pressure to produce fast tight code was immense, code review meetings were the biggest bitch sessions I've ever known however the latitude given to programming staff is great. I had a chaise longue in my office, another guy had a baby grand piano. I was there at the end of the 80's and often wish I'd stayed on as the guy I went over with from HP stayed an extra 5 years and retired on his options... Microsoft definitely did not employ cheap labour, yes there was a kudos working for them but that evaporated when everyone you knew worked for them... the salary was good and the options and benefits were too... But then that was over 20 years ago and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then.... Adam. -----Original Message----- From: ProFox [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Virgil Bierschwale Sent: 24 April 2013 13:05 To: 'ProFox Email List' Subject: RE: [NF] The Tech Industry's Darkest Secret: It's All About Age That is what we are told by the media. One of these days people are going to realize that the media is owned, controlled, and shackled by six multinational corporations. Let me show you what was happening back in the 80's Through the architects and program managers, Gates was able to control the work of every programmer at Microsoft, but to do so reliably required cheap and obedient labor. Gates set a policy that consciously avoided hiring experienced programmers, specializing, instead, in recent computer science graduates. Microsoft became a kind of cult. By hiring inexperienced workers and indoctrinating them into a religion that taught the concept that metaprogrammers were better than mere programmers and that Bill Gates, as the metametaprogrammer, was perfect, Microsoft created a system of hero worship that extended Gates's will into every aspect of the lives of employees he had not even met. It worked for Kim Il Sung in North Korea, and it works in the suburbs east of Seattle too. Most software companies hire the friends of current employees, but Microsoft hires kids right out of college and relocates them. The company's appetite for new programming meat is nearly insatiable. One year Microsoft got in trouble with the government of India for hiring nearly every computer science graduate in the country and moving them all to Redmond. After studying this for ten years to see why I can't find work anymore, I have come to realize that this is only happening in the mega corporations for the most part. The readers of this list are not typically affected by such things as they are self employed, and if they get their business from similar sized businesses, they should be good. Problem is, those that get their business from the megacorporations seem to be experiencing what the writer discusses. I first noticed this back around 2000 which is why I worked to get my way into management and out of development. When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, I moved home to texas thinking I could find work in Austin and ya'll know most of that story. Ten years later I find myself pigeonholed as the typical software developer with outdated skills that he writes about in his article. All of this said though, what I finally realized was happening in 2011 and 2012 was that the supply is greater than the demand which allows things like this to happen. The reason that supply is greater than demand is the offshoring of jobs which is why I fight it via Keep America At Work. That doesn't mean that I don't think that every country needs good jobs, because I do. It is just that when you honestly pull your head out of the sand and run the numbers, the data doesn't lie as I attempt to show in this article. http://keepamericaatwork.com/archives/210917 -----Original Message----- From: ProFox [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Alan Bourke Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 6:31 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [NF] The Tech Industry's Darkest Secret: It's All About Age Sure but was it not always thus, for all types of tech professionals? It also depends on location and skill base - here in Ireland there are no kids coming out of college with IT and development skills because they were all told 'tech is dead, go into pharma' after the dotcom bubble. To an extent where despite being a country under an IMF bailout with high-ish unemployment, the Googles and Microsofts who have their European bases here often have to recruit people from outside the country because they can't find enough people from inside. But yes - upskill or die, as ever. _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: <http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox> http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: <http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech> http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: <http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox> http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: <http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/1366803078.9218.140661222095738.3C93 [email protected]> http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/1366803078.9218.140661222095738.3C930 [email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. 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