Today is my last day at Microsoft. It’s been an incredible 9 years.

I’ve been extremely fortunate in my career at Microsoft to work with such smart, passionate folks. As a college hire from Mississippi State, I feel it is important to play what I’ve learned forward. I recently spoke at the New Mexico Regional Grace Hopper Women in Tech conference on “How Microsoft Builds Software”, in hopes of inspiring young women to have awesome careers of their own.

As a final blog post here, I thought I’d share some of my favorite blogging memories:

• Bloggers, The Movie, although I think I look much more like Sara Gilbert
• My blog reader who cashed out his FSA to buy medical supplies for my hometown after Hurricane Katrina. I’ll never forget meeting him in the “kid drop off” section of building 41, as he unloaded eight plastic grocery bags of first aid supplies. Thank you. (The supplies were gone in hours.)
• Mini – need I say more ;-)
• The day the Starbucks iCup was installed in building 41. For 3 days, we were the most productive people on the planet. TICK TOCK TICK TOCK.
• The public outcry on blogs.msdn.com when our towels were taken away, and how Lisa became our hero when they were brought back.
• The day Windows Live Writer came out.
• How we all went Halo 2 blogging crazy, and how some of us tried to camp at the Company Store to get in line before the queue wrapped the building.
• The day I actually got to use my French minor to figure out which “Did you know” phrase I used in my head during the VS Tip of the Day series.
• The day I saw the Visual Studio ad on SciFi.com – “Cylons: Why Debugging Matters.” I’ve never been more proud.

To my colleagues at Microsoft: Be transparent! Incorporate community feedback! Make great products! And keep on blogging!

As for me, I’ve had the opportunity of my dreams come along that I got to pursue. But first, I’m going to take a short break to get some much needed cycling in.

You can stay tuned to my adventures at

Blog: http://saraford.net

Twitter: @saraford

LinkedIn: Sara Ford

See you soon! Or to quote Lost, “See you in another life, brotha!”