Microsoft Windows SDK Blog : Life on the SDK Team

Announcing: The Windows SDK Developer Center

wsdkblog@microsoft.com — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:04:00 GMT

Today we launched the Windows SDK MSDN Developer Center. This site is intended as a one-stop place to provide information to help you determine which version of the Windows SDK is most appropriate for your use, and to get information on how you can maximize your experience with the Windows SDK.

Some other useful things you’ll find on the site:

Useful information for how you can use the SDK.
Links to appropriate Windows or Platform SDK downloads.
Links to useful downloads to content that is associated with the SDK such as Windows PowerShell and the Debugging Tools for Windows.
Links and views into community content.
Online Release Notes that are refreshed as new issues come up.
Link to the SDK’s Privacy Statement.
Links to related Developer Centers.
Links to support information.

We’re pretty darn excited to get this site live, but of course it’s only a first take on the project. We have a good amount of additional content we’re planning on adding to the site over the next few months, including a matrix to help determine which SDK release is the right one for you. Please help us by sending feedback on the site. You can add a comment below or use one of the mailto links on the site.

Day of Caring 2007

wsdkblog@microsoft.com — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 02:37:00 GMT

Last Friday I took part in the annual Microsoft Day of Caring, a day set aside each year for employees to volunteer to perform community activities. Thousands of ‘softies take on hundreds of different activities each year. This year I helped weed and clean up Golden Garden Park, a lovely park in the Ballard area of Seattle that boasts a gorgeous view of Puget Sound. It seems the park was facing a large incursion of non-native plant life and nasty blackberry bushes, so a group of about 40 Microsoft people descended on the park on a blustery Friday morning to take on the task.

I'm not much of a gardener, as my neighbors and family will agree, but this was really fun work. It was great to get out and do work completely different from the kinds of stuff I do every day on the job. We were out there with picks and clippers and other garden tools, a set of tools very different from my regular Visual Studio toolbox. It was also great to get out and enjoy the beautiful sunlight that came out around 11:00. You know, it sounds corny, but getting out there and feeling like I was helping the community was really the best reward. Our group pulled out an astonishing amount of weeds - at least, it was astonishing to me to look at all the six-foot-tall piles of Japanese knotwood and see that people like me had done that. And as I looked at all my sweaty and tired compatriots at the end of the day, I could see that many of them felt the same way.

I've been with the company for 7 years, but this is the first time I've taken part in this event. I might not have taken part if my friend Karin hadn't recommended I do so. Karin is a former oceanographer and is very environmentally conscious. But I'm glad I did, and I'm kicking myself for not doing this sooner.

I'm sure this post reads like Microsoft propaganda, but I just wanted to share something nicely positive that Microsoft does. There are many reasons I'm proud to work at Microsoft; this is definitely one of them.

Jason Sacks
Headers & Libs PM, Windows SDK

Lori Pearce, Windows SDK PUM, on Channel 9

wsdkblog@microsoft.com — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 23:22:00 GMT

Lori Pearce, our own Product Unit Manager for the Windows SDK team, was recently interviewed on Channel 9. How does the Windows SDK Team build a product that supports development using both the Win32 and .NET Framework programming models? Hear it from the source. Lori came to Microsoft with the Visio acquisition after years of experience as a developer and manager. From her first project writing graphics code in Pascal for the HP150, to her “inevitable” destination at Microsoft, Lori shares the joys and challenges of shipping software.

Windows SDK Team

Come and join the Windows SDK Team!

wsdkblog@microsoft.com — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 22:08:00 GMT

The Windows SDK Team has open positions for Software Development Engineers (SDEs) and a Program Manager.

We have 2 fulltime SDE positions open and one part time SDE position (30 hours or less). Personally, I am super excited about offering part time positions on the team; I am a big proponent of flexibible work arrangements and it's great to finally be able to "practice what I preach."

I will let Jeff Chrisope (our new Dev Lead) and Lisa Supinski (our PM Lead) blog about the details of their open positions. They should be posted to the Microsoft Career site shortly. Search on "Windows SDK" and you should find them.

If you like to have a ton of responsibility and ship products to customers on a regular basis, we are the team for you!

Lori Pearce

Product Unit Manager, Windows SDK

My 9th anniversary at Microsoft

wsdkblog@microsoft.com — Tue, 01 May 2007 20:26:00 GMT

April 30, 2007

Last Friday was my 9 year anniversary as a Microsoft employee. According to Microsoft tradition, I’m supposed to bring in 9 lbs of candy and put it in the hallway for my coworkers to feast on. This year, instead of following that tradition, I decided to mark the occasion by reflecting on the past and sharing a few thoughts in the hope that what I have to say today might be of interest to future Microsoft employees. At Microsoft, I’ve worked with many talented people and loved nearly every minute of it. There have been challenges, but working with great people and helping to deliver products I was proud of made each project worthwhile and memorable. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, since I’m one of those people who gets bored and unhappy without something challenging to sink my teeth into.

Like many Microsoft employees, I want to make a difference. It has been super easy to get fired up about the cool projects I have had the opportunity to work on. Microsoft has been a great place for me to use and develop my personal strengths for the benefit of the team and the product while having an inordinate amount of fun. Through some terrific mentors and role models, I’ve learned what integrity and leadership are all about, and the confidence I have developed has helped me in many aspects of my life. As a people manager at Microsoft for the last 6 years, I’ve learned many lessons, including the fact that listening is the most important thing I do. My favorite role overall was leading the team that wrote most of the .NET Framework version 1.0 documentation -- I like the excitement of being on the “bleeding” edge. It was an awesome team that worked well together.

I count myself lucky to have been a Microsoft employee for the past 9 years. If you happen to be looking for a new job, I hope you’ll take a look at what Microsoft has to offer on http://microsoft.com/careers.

Lisa Supinski
Lead Program Manager
Windows SDK

The Windows SDK team is looking for a Tools Program Manager

wsdkblog@microsoft.com — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 21:17:00 GMT

Looking to join an fast-paced and exciting team at Microsoft? Looking to help drive our strategy around delivering both .NET Framework and C++ tools to a large and passionate audience of users? Then consider applying for a Program Manager position on the Windows SDK team. If you have experience as a developer, technical content creator, software program or project manager, and you are passionate about quality, this could be a great opportunity for you to rise to the challenge of delighting the developer community,

Full details on the job are here - or if you have any questions, please add them to the comments in this post.

The Windows SDK Program Managers

wsdkblog@microsoft.com — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 23:18:00 GMT

Now that we have shipped the Windows SDK for Vista, the Windows SDK program management team is working on future releases and looking forward to the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. We are a team of 9 individuals who do the planning, scheduling, coordinating, and driving that it takes to ship the SDK. We gather requirements and write specifications for SDK features, and we collaborate with multiple teams within Microsoft to collect and ship the content that the SDK contains. Our roles combine he responsibilities of release management with the challenges of driving the creation of SDK features. Each of us is passionate about providing content that helps customers be successful with Microsoft products. Some team members have worked on the SDK team for several years, and some of us just joined this year. I joined the team this past July, having worked on other projects at Microsoft for almost 9 years. My previous roles included being a writer for some Microsoft SDKs and managing the team that created and delivered most of the .NET Framework 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0 documentation. My interests include quality standards for content, security technologies, and team building.

We're hoping you’ll tell us what you think about the Windows SDK for Vista. What did we do well? What needs work? Thanks in advance for any time you spend sending us feedback.

Lisa Supinski

Group Program Manager, Windows SDK

How the Windows SDK team manages our milestone processes

wsdkblog@microsoft.com — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 19:40:00 GMT

Hello All!

I am Brian Cost, the QA Manager for the Windows SDK team. You've heard from Program Managers on various topics and now it's time for Test to post.

As Vista Beta 2 approaches, the Windows SDK team has deadlines and mini-milestones to meet before we will be able to release the SDK for public consumption. One of those milestones is something called Zero Bug Bounce (ZBB). Basically, it's the point at which there are no active bugs against the product for the upcoming milestone, and any new bugs coming in are fixed within a one or two day window. It's also a point at which there is furious developer activity fixing bugs and testers verifying the bugs are fixed. It's also a point at which Program Managers should stay out of the way.

What else does Zero Bug Bounce mean? Well, as developers are fixing bugs at a higher rate than testers are finding them, eventually you get to zero active bugs. Then, for a very short time, testers bump it up a notch and start finding bugs and driving the active bug count up, which is the bounce. Eventually it evens out again and bugs are fixed immediately keeping the active count at zero

Here is a little background as to what happens with bugs during a typical milestone release, and by milestone I mean a span of time that's just a few of months (e.g. November to February CTP release). In the beginning of a milestone, Program Managers are very busy writing up specifications (spec) and getting sign-off from various members of the team (dev & QA). Very few bugs are found during this phase because there really isn't a lot of code to be run and tested.

Once specs are done, developers get busy writing all the code to implement the specs. Again, not a whole lot of bugs are being found, but more than when they were in the planning phase. As developers are coding up features and builds are coming out on a daily basis, a lot more testing occurs, and here is where most of the bugs are found. As developers are still busy developing new code, they don't have time to fix all the bugs that come their way. This is not to say there are a huge number of bugs in the product, it's just that the developer's responsibility is to make getting to code complete a priority, and fixing bugs is #2.

Now as we get to the finishing stretch and features are coded up and complete, focus turns to making sure comprehensive testing of the entire product has been done, and any remaining bugs are found and fixed. Developers sole goal at this point is to fix, fix, fix and testers to verify, verify, verify in the drive to ZBB. Once that date arrives, and there are 0 bugs active, it's a major event. It means that testing has covered what they need to and exercised new code, and developers have resolved remaining issues. You can see the light at the end of the tunnel for the final RTM build and the point at which we put the bits out so you can download them.

I hope that this has given you a little insight into what happens on the Windows SDK team and get ready for the Beta 2 release coming soon!

-Brian