Change

NOTE: This is a personal blog post. If you usually come here for technical content, please feel free to skip this one

Change is wonderful. I have this deal with myself where I evaluate where I am in my career and personal life every 2 years. Sometimes, this evaluation leads me to a new career path but most times it just re-energizes me to go and work even harder at whatever I’m doing at the time. Well, it’s time for another one of those events and this time I’ve decided to leave Microsoft and go pursue a different path.

I love Microsoft and I am very very proud of the products I’ve been part of over my 9 year career here. I started working in Microsoft consulting services selling and educating customers about our products. Implementing solutions based on Microsoft technology. If you’ve ever had freight shipped to you on a Norfolk Southern train you’re indirectly using technology my team built. If you’ve ever had Coca Cola we were part of the bottling process in some small way. I also worked on the team that shipped SQL Server 2012, Windows Phone 8.1, Windows 8,1 and most recently of course Windows 10. I know how unbelievably lucky I am to have had these opportunities and for that I am grateful.

Microsoft gave me the opportunity to be a consultant, a developer and a program manager. Microsoft also helped me achieve my life long dream of coming to the United States and building a career in this fine country. For those reasons and because I firmly believe in Satya’s vision I remain fully invested in Microsoft’s future. In fact, I just bought a house in Redmond which is pretty much a Microsoft town. So in some sense my fate is now even more tied to Microsoft than it was before. Oh, and I already pre-ordered a Surface Book 🙂

As far as this blog is concerned, not much will change. I will continue blogging and talking about Windows 10. There’s a LOT of stuff we built into it that still needs discussion and Windows 10 will go to places and do things in the future that will make it even more valuable to be a Windows developer. I’ll still be a Microsoft/Windows fanboy. Only now, it’ll be from the outside.

P.S.: You would not believe how long I spent coming up with a title for this post. In fact, I might still change it. That’s what’s so wonderful about electronic publishing (that’s blogging for you young ‘uns).

Now, for your viewing pleasure, a picture of me looking mock sad as I leave Microsoft and hand over my credentials:

Goodbye Microsoft

Finally, the email I sent my colleagues at Microsoft:

Hello!

 

I’m sending you this email because I’m about to leave Microsoft. Yup, it’s one of those messages. I always feel really weird and conflicted when I get one of these messages. Occasionally, it’s a great time to go say goodbye to dear colleague who has decided to pursue a different opportunity. Mostly, it leads to a frantic look up on the address book to figure out who it is and whether I should care about them leaving. If it’s the latter for you, please stop reading now. If it’s the former, keep going.

 

9 years is a long time. That’s nearly how long I’ve been part of Microsoft. People call us the evil empire and I must admit I fully expected to see people hatching conspiracies in cigar smoke filled rooms when I joined. Guess what, haven’t seen any of those rooms yet. What I did realize was that we’re just a collection of engineers trying our level best to build things we (and hopefully others) want to use. In the time I’ve been here I’ve worked with the consulting services team, with SQL server and the last couple of years with Windows. These have been some of the most fruitful and engaging times in my life and you all have made that possible in one way or another. So thank you! Thank you for showing me the way, thank you for calling me out when I was doing something wrong and thank you for putting up with my many foibles. You’ve made me the engineer, the program manager and most importantly the person that I am.

 

This is beginning to sound like an Oscar speech so I’m going to stop right here. If you’d like to reach me, the details are below. I’m still going to be on the eastside (just bought a house here!) so drop me a line if you’d like to meet up and talk. One last thing! If you don’t mind, please put a recommendation for me on my LinkedIn profile. I strongly believe that you, my colleagues, are the best equipped to judge my performance so please take a moment and do it for me J

 

Good luck folks!

 

Arun

 

Here’s how you can reach me in the future:

LinkedIn: http://www.arunjeetsingh.com
Twitter: @aruntalkstech
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arunjeetsingh
Blog: http://www.aruntalkstech.com
Xbox: Arunjeet Singh2

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