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We just built a new website aimed at helping job-seekers figure out if they might be interested in working in the Exchange team: http://www.exchangeyourcareer.com.
Our goal in building the site was to let people know more about what kind of work we do on the Exchange team, showcase a few of the people who already work in Exchange, what it's like living in the northwest, and show how Exchange has helped change the world.
As you can see, the site is written in a light tone and intended to showcase the sense of humor the team has as well as make the content easier to read. There are also a few 'easter eggs' (for lack of a better term) hidden throughout the flash on the site, including at least one that long-time Exchange administrators who've ever done JET performance tuning[1] should find amusing :-)
So if you or someone you know of might be interested in one of the many roles on the team (not just dev/test/PM but also build engineers, writers, editors, designers, user researchers and more) and seeing what it takes to design, develop, test and ship a world-class product, then check out http://www.exchangeyourcareer.com.
If you're interested in a job in Exchange, send your resume to xcareer AT microsoft DOT com, if there is a potential fit in one of the openings you'll be contacted with the next steps in the process.
We've also included below some segments of an article written for Microsoft's internal newsletter about the site because, well, frankly, we just thought it was funny and well-written.[2]
[1] To quote the developer responsible for the original checkin[3]: "That is by far the most annoying animation I have ever seen (and heard)! ;-)"[2] Just to head the comments off at the pass, we know that we have a bug in the timeline related to when something came out. If you spot the error, then you might be a good fit – send us your resume ;-)[3] Who yes, still works in Exchange, 10 years later.
Excerpt from the internal newsletter article:
It's not every day you see an employment site urging project managers to "make the product kick some major ass." Or one that includes jokes about testers ("Pushing the limits of things or systems - until they explode.") or company work habits. ("You won't be in the office 24/7. Honest. No, really.") "We didn't want to do just another recruiting-type web site," said Lynne Andersen, the former Business Manager for the Exchange Group who led development efforts on ExchangeYourCareer.com. Set to launch August 13, the site takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to hiring, augmenting the usual factual information about job opportunities with comic riffs on technology history and obsessive coders. "Exchange is growing... and we knew we needed to keep infusing the team with new talent," said Andersen, who now serves as Director of Staffing for the Entertainment and Devices Division. "We were looking for interesting ways to recruit and this idea sort of came up." Andersen and Program Manager Mark Protus brought the project to the creative team at Ramp Group, a consulting firm hired to design the site. At first, comedy wasn't mentioned as one of the components. Then Jonah Sterling, a Creative Director at Ramp Group, visited the Exchange Group team on campus, "When I went in and actually got a chance to look around their offices and see the types of people who were in there - what their humor level was - I was really surprised," Sterling said. "Bringing out that humor and exposing it suddenly became our top priority." As a conduit for that humor, the team created a trio of cartoon characters that welcome visitors to the site and reflect the style and attitude of the Millennial generation - those born during the last two decades of the 20th century. So you have Josh, the program manager, T.C., the developer, and Stephen, the tester, all of whom were drawn in an edgy style that Sterling described as "more like the Gorillaz and less like Scooby-Do." The team even developed bios for the trio and left clues to their personalities on their badges and PDAs. The team hopes the recruitment site will change people's perceptions of Microsoft - or, at the very least, give them a laugh. "We're dealing with capable, intelligent people, and capable, intelligent people are funny, and value funny," noted Jamie Gower, one of the writers for ExchangeYourCareer. "As my grandmother said, 'You catch more flies with honey than with a static, text-based page of corporate-speak.' But then, she always talked like that ...."
It's not every day you see an employment site urging project managers to "make the product kick some major ass." Or one that includes jokes about testers ("Pushing the limits of things or systems - until they explode.") or company work habits. ("You won't be in the office 24/7. Honest. No, really.")
"We didn't want to do just another recruiting-type web site," said Lynne Andersen, the former Business Manager for the Exchange Group who led development efforts on ExchangeYourCareer.com. Set to launch August 13, the site takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to hiring, augmenting the usual factual information about job opportunities with comic riffs on technology history and obsessive coders.
"Exchange is growing... and we knew we needed to keep infusing the team with new talent," said Andersen, who now serves as Director of Staffing for the Entertainment and Devices Division. "We were looking for interesting ways to recruit and this idea sort of came up."
Andersen and Program Manager Mark Protus brought the project to the creative team at Ramp Group, a consulting firm hired to design the site. At first, comedy wasn't mentioned as one of the components. Then Jonah Sterling, a Creative Director at Ramp Group, visited the Exchange Group team on campus, "When I went in and actually got a chance to look around their offices and see the types of people who were in there - what their humor level was - I was really surprised," Sterling said. "Bringing out that humor and exposing it suddenly became our top priority."
As a conduit for that humor, the team created a trio of cartoon characters that welcome visitors to the site and reflect the style and attitude of the Millennial generation - those born during the last two decades of the 20th century. So you have Josh, the program manager, T.C., the developer, and Stephen, the tester, all of whom were drawn in an edgy style that Sterling described as "more like the Gorillaz and less like Scooby-Do." The team even developed bios for the trio and left clues to their personalities on their badges and PDAs.
The team hopes the recruitment site will change people's perceptions of Microsoft - or, at the very least, give them a laugh. "We're dealing with capable, intelligent people, and capable, intelligent people are funny, and value funny," noted Jamie Gower, one of the writers for ExchangeYourCareer. "As my grandmother said, 'You catch more flies with honey than with a static, text-based page of corporate-speak.' But then, she always talked like that ...."
- The Exchange Team