Ask HN: How valuable to my resume is 5 years at Microsoft?

I almost always consider it a strong positive, because Microsoft has a strong selection process (everyone who works there went through a day of interviewing).<p>That said, the way that Microsoft has been dealing with its extreme uncoolness lately has been by paying salaries that are far above market. With very few exceptions, every time I've tried to recruit a Microsoft veteran to a startup, they've started to pull out the spreadsheets and given me complicated sob stories about how they can make $1m in the next three years if they stay at Microsoft, whereas I'm only offering them, eh, a few % of a hot startup.<p>The bottom line is that spending a lot of time at Microsoft could very well ruin you for startups.<p>Even though I did it that way, there are two different ways of thinking about your career, and if you're REALLY a startup person, you're not going to be hedging bets by serving out your 5 year Microsoft prison sentence. If you're telling yourself that as soon as you're fully vested you'll leave, you have failed to take into account the new incentives that Microsoft will put in front of you by the end of the fifth year. And eventually you're going to be stuck in the $300,000/year treadmill at a life-sucking anonymous job with no chance of ever hitting it big (or making an impact on the world).

Sounds like that's great to put on your resume, anybody that would not hire you based on it being microsoft where you worked before is probably best avoided anyway.<p>Be proud of what you achieved in such a short time, not ashamed.

I worked at Microsoft for five years in the 90s. I dropped out of college prior to joining, so I was on the same trajectory as you are.<p>I always say that Microsoft is a great place to have worked. It's great for learning how to ship real software (large and small) with all of the attendant processes and politics that go with it. You will learn what you think is important to take with you and what is important to leave behind. Both types of learning are important, because as you move to startups, you will have a hand in determining the equivalents in your new microcosm of that world.<p>One interesting quality I see from many people who have worked there is that there is a perception that life after (i.e., outside of) Microsoft is scary. That's partly because you can change jobs there endlessly and never actually leave. You can go from working on operating systems to large binary (client) applications to Internet apps to video games, etc. I've had to assure several of my friends that were contemplating leaving that the water outside is safe and warm. Every one of them has thanked me afterwards.<p>Another poster made a good point about some companies' HR departments not taking a second look at you. That's true. However, I generally wouldn't want to work at those companies anyway. I've never had a problem finding work at great places. In fact, I've never had to apply for a job since I left. If you're good, and your network is sound, people will reach out to you--degree or not. Microsoft is a great foundation on which to build your resume.

5 years at Microsoft is boring. But you say: <i>I pioneered the use of data semantics within Bing</i>. That will get you a job interview anywhere where people care about search or semantics.<p>You are now branded :-)

Approximately as valuable as 2 years at Microsoft.<p>No, it's not a negative, at all. Get out of the echo chamber. Mostly, the people with the loudest opinions about MSFT are the ones with the least influence over hiring.

I left MSFT at the end of 2008 after ~3.5yrs (search, Mesh, Azure), took 6 months off, and started my own company. In the processing of recruiting &#38; fundraising, the experience at MSFT was almost always a good thing (people respect it)--but I got a couple of comments from investors saying "it's a good thing you left when you did, &#62; 5 years is a red flag for us".<p>I also have the same reaction hiring people now...a few years means I'll always interview them, MSFT's selection process is generally good. But after about 3-4 years, I've found most people (even the ones who express an incredible, proactive desire to "do a startup") never actually follow through on the decision. I think this is what Joel was referring to as the $300k/yr treadmill.<p>Finally...a couple people pointed out that the skill set you develop at MSFT is of marginal utility externally <i>in specific settings</i>...the specific setting that most HN readers assume is Silicon Valley. :) Assuming that's your goal as well, .Net-specific and Windows-specific experience isn't highly transferrable to LAMP down here. Obviously good developers can pick up new languages pretty quickly, but you are missing some depth there. And clearly the MSFT process isn't going to be helpful in most companies &#60; 10k people, or honestly most web companies (and I worked on services there :) ).<p>Long answer short--I think 5 years is longer than you need or want if you want to go elsewhere, especially a startup...I'd vote for 3 years.

Having worked at Microsoft should get you an interview just about anywhere. And anyone who considers it a negative is, frankly, an idiot.

Potential employers perceived my four years in Microsoft as being extremely valuable when I left in 2007.<p>Just make sure you leave on good terms. I still chat with my last manager on occasion, and expect that I could get back in without too much trouble if things ever got really hairy out here.<p>Also, I looked at your LinkedIn profile, and recommend describing your accomplishments in less HR-centric terms: an 'exceeded' contribution rating is great, but it might not mean much to a hiring manager at a Madrona portfolio company. Like alain said elsewhere, be more specific with what you achieved.

I did a double take when I saw this thread - I finish 5 years at Microsoft to the <i>day</i> today :)

So, how about this for an answer:<p>I'm the founder of <a href="http://Newsley.com" rel="nofollow">http://Newsley.com</a>, and we're pivoting away from being a financial social news site. We're doing a lot of semantic web using OpenCalais, and we're building the engine to process a bazillion financial news articles in real time and use semantic meta data as a basis for a search and recommendation service.<p>If you want to see some of the semantic stuff we're doing click on the discuss link for any article: <a href="http://newsley.com/articles/one-tenth-of-all-us-banks-on-the-fidcs-list-of-problem-institutions-in-the-first-quarter/2154" rel="nofollow">http://newsley.com/articles/one-tenth-of-all-us-banks-on-the...</a>. Those entities are all automatically extracted. It's pretty basic, but there's a lot more cool stuff we're planning.<p>We're waiting to pursue funding until we apply to YC this fall. I'm sure we'll be hiring early engineers within the next 9 months or so...<p>ping me: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=iamelgringo" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=iamelgringo</a>

I've ran across a couple ex-MSFTers that were way too expensive for their skill set. But I still wish I could have hired them, they were smart guys.<p>Aside from that, if you are being interviewed by real tech people, not an HR machine, there's no way MSFT could ever count against you.<p>Way more damning is if you <i>only</i> have experience with .NET or something like that.

I have some influence over certain hiring decisions at a startup. I'd look at experience like that and think "this guy is probably pretty awesome." The MS name might be a bit tainted, but there's no doubt that they have a lot of very talented engineers, and if you really did pioneer the use of data semantics within Bing, well that's pretty impressive.<p>That said, we'd look at that experience and guess that you would probably not be interested in working at our startup-sized salaries, so I wouldn't expect much effort to recruit you in the first place. The other thing we'd need to make sure about is that you're not stuck doing things "The Microsoft Way (tm)"; you'd be joining a very different culture and if you're not going to fit in, it's not going to work.

It's not that big companies, or big companies some of us love to mock are always bad, it's that it can be very easy for mediocre programmers to fly under the radar in those environments for years, and never accomplish or learn much of anything. As you've done in your question, focus on your project experience and what you learned and the company where you worked on those projects becomes inconsequential.

Keep in mind that Google and Amazon did hire a lot of MS employees (especially Google at Kirkland) a few years ago. I'm sure they're still opening their door for MS employees. I'd take Google or Amazon mindset than a cocky startup.<p>Don't sweat over your 5-6 years experience at MS especially when your case is "special", you work at Bing and probably you work from the beginning until you launched. 5 years is not a long time to launch a product like Bing.<p>In fact, you should be proud and feel a bit more comfortable with your resume so far. 5 years show determination, loyalty, and hard work. Like any other poster said, if a startup didn't like your resume because of your experience at MS, you wouldn't like them anyway.<p>I've seen people who just talk about "how bad MS products" are after a link from Reddit/Digg showed up but they don't have anything to prove themselves.<p>Good luck with your decision whatever that is and keep your mindset in a neutral zone.

Being versatile is prized. I don't expect your MS work to count against you.

If anyone wants, I'll write about my experiences going in the <i>opposite</i> direction -- from the start-up world to Microsoft.

Randomness dominates startups in a way that makes your concern about first impressions unnecessary.

Without college you will hit an HR brick wall at some employers, but likely these will be ones you wouldn't want to work for anyway.<p>Sounds to me like your 5 years at MS is probably equal to or better than an undergraduate degree at least as far as technical competency is concerned.

I tend to judge people by what they have accomplished. With that said, I tend to favor consistency over a big grand accomplishment. It just show that you have sustaining skills.<p>It's the knowledge that you've retained from your work at Microsoft that is of importance. Focus on that. Better yet provide some guidance in your domain of knowledge to the hacker community.

No college and you got a jo at M. at 22? This was in the early eighties? Serious; the fact that they hired you at all implies you got some gift that any tech. company probably would value.

Side note: does anyone have a Quora invite?

Goodness, how could that NOT be great? Did you steal from them or something? I can't imagine why you would ask this.