... or Borg.Assimilate(Me)
... or Brendan.Drink(Drink.KoolAid);
... or Brendan.Soul.Sell(Microsoft)
... or Brendan.Employer.Name = "Microsoft";
At last the background checks are complete and now all that remains is the move and my first day...
On March 24th I will be joining the Windows Home Server team (yes at Microsoft) as a Software Development Engineer.
Bo ya!
When did this happen?
Back on February 4th I flew out to Seattle, WA, spent a full day interviewing with the team the next day and had the recruiter trying to make an offer the day after that.
(I'll write about the exhausting interview process another day)
Leading up to this trip I tried to keep the number of people in the know as small as possible... in fact only one family member knew about this trip prior to returning home... but now the world can know!
What'd you see?
While I didn't see anything I shouldn't, I did have the opportunity to meet (and interview with) Windows Home Server General Manager Charlie Kindel (on Channel 9) and Lead Developer Chris Gray (on Channel 9) as well as quite a few other amazing folks (none of whom seem to have a blog) that I look forward to working with very soon.
Unfortunately I didn't get to see the old hockey puck design, I did have the chance to see some very old prototypes of the MediaSmart server as well as a few completed units (something I'd never seen in person) as well as getting to stick my head into a build lab that had more computers and storage than is easily comprehended.
Why the delay in the announcement?
While not normally a paranoid person, from time to time I do worry a bit in this case wanted to make sure that the background check came back clean before saying too much... and now I can with the knowledge that Microsoft doesn't care that I used to bear a striking resemblance to a certain known terrorist.
What does this mean for this blog?
This blog was started long ago as a personal blog with my rants and raves on various topics both political and technical. When Windows Home Server came out and I started spending more time programming with it it started to move that way... something that is going to be changing a bit.
Once I'm settled in Redmond and have begun work I intend to start a new blog (likely on blogs.msdn.com or blogs.technet.com) that will focus (near) exclusively on Windows Home Server, allowing this one to revert back to it's previous state of a personal blog and allow readers to be able to more easily sort back and forth.
Stay tuned for further details on this transition. Note though that due to how busy the next month will be, my WHS Dev Tips series may continue to be delayed a bit (amazingly I wasn't scolded or asked to stop while there).
What's next?
Even though my start date is penciled in for March 24th, a full month away... the next month is going to be incredibly busy with moving the week of the 17th, teaching my final programming class during the week of the 10th, packing and cleaning like a mad man during the week of the 3rd as well as taking a trip to Seattle to try to find a place to live, and visiting the Democratic People's Republic of Minnesota (DPRM) next week to collect a few things and say a couple good byes.
That all said... here I come building 43!
Read the complete post at http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/IHateLinux/~3/239444117/mr-grant-goes-to-washington-state.html