Phillip Bogle's answers

One of the projects I worked on at Microsoft was a project called Redshark. We prototyped (using Java!) a number of interesting ideas in the Windows User Experience. One of the ideas was a simpler experience for Windows and browser apps that would extend the simplicity of the the browser model to native applications. (There was no need to think about manually starting and exiting applications, or explicitly saving files.) We also worked on a unified, semi-structured store that would simplify application development and support efficient fulltext and natural language queries....

Microsoft is not one company and one culture, it's thousands of teams each with its own culture. Be sure to choose your team carefully and to make sure that it's politically situated so that it's culture and mission can remain intact for the long haul.

Though I worked on many different projects while I was at Microsoft, there was a core group of people who I spent most of my time with-- people like Sam McKelvie, Bob Welland, and John Cordell. It turned out that working with smart and fun people mattered more than the specific project we were working on.

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