Broken egos, smashed pride
How do I know that the screening for the first open round of MCA invitations is over? Because my mailbox is starting to fill with opinionated emails ranging from "I'm sooo lame, I'll never be an MCA architect" to "This MCA is sooo lame, now I don't want to be MCA certified".
To all candidates that were accepted: congratulations, well done!
And to all that were not accepted, all I can say is that you got the feedback what to work on. So WORK ON IT, don't indulge in the discussions how useless and unrealistic the MCA programme is! As the old saying goes, your drug dealer is not your friend. You can improve, you will improve and you will apply again. Right?
To publicly answer some of the questions I got:
- Besides a micro-core of the initial seeding architects, every single MCA candidate went through the initial phone screening as well. [My screener was Carol Roy and it was the strangest interview I ever had: a French-Canadian Solution Architect talking to an East-European Infrastructure candidate. You can imagine.]
- There are no relaxed requirements for Microsoft employees. Actually my personal (highly subjective) opinion is that MS folks have much tougher time in the MCA programme as they all wear the stigma of single-vendor, single-technology bias. [The first thing I'd ask an MS employee would be something about UNIX or Java]
- There is no quota set for any stage of the MCA programme. If all candidates would fit, we'd accept all of them. Likewise, there were some review board sessions in the past when not a single candidate passed. [The quality bar is not moving based on the supply and demand.]
Simon started his own thread regarding his experience with MCA programme. He is a real mensch as he is blogging about experiences without knowing whether he is accepted into the programme or not.
