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Dream Job #2

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Over the last two or three years, my passion for designing and documenting collaborative development tools like Visual Studio, Visual Studio Team Foundation, and yes, even Visual SourceSafe has burgeoned into an irresistible interest in social software. Source control software tools provide structured software development teams with the ability to collaborate more effectively. Social software like blogs, wikis, forums, and newsgroups facilitate the formation and collaboration of ad hoc software development efforts and virtual teams.

I recently described Team Foundation as “ a force magnifier, a whole-greater-than-sum-of-parts system for professional developers. Using Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server together is like having a fast, grown up, LAN-based version of GotDotNet (workspaces, bug tracking, ...) built into Visual Studio. ”

When I wrote that sentence, I had no idea that I would soon have an opportunity to interview for a program management position on Community team of MSDN/TechNet, a team whose mission is to infuse our customer-facing Websites like MSDN with genuine, push and pull community features that allow people like you to connect with other developers and IT professionals, leverage their knowledge, and contribute your own if you want.

Microsoft interviews are legendary for their length and toughness and mine was no exception. However, this was the first interview loop I've been through that left me feeling more energetic at the end of the day than when it began. I felt like I was powering up my idea engine and firing on all cylinders for once.

I got the job! Hello dream job #2. Goodbye dream job #1. After just enough vacation and paternity leave, I officially joined my new team on December 27, 2004. I am a fish out of water but am absolutely thrilled to have an opportunity to marry my knowledge of the software development and documentation processes for developer tools to my passion for Web-based, ad hoc collaborative development efforts.

Initially, I will contribute to initiatives such as personalization features for MSDN, Ladybug, customer-generated content (we publish, you edit, we post it...maybe;-), and other projects. Stay tuned for TurboKorby in the next few weeks because my gyro-ideator is spinning like crazy and a great blogtharis is due.

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