So that's how fast the fast lane is Jeff Riley, director of Online Operations, has not written a line of code since college, yet he's been responsible for some of Microsoft's biggest and most successful projects. My group identifies their needs, and then designs programs and projects that help them move there successfully. Actually, if you look around Microsoft, you'll see lots of people who don't write code. When I first came here I underestimated how open, honest, and passionate the atmosphere would be. There's no fluff.
Theories are nice, but they're often irrelevant in the real world.
If something doesn't work, we learn from it and try again. Jeff feels that Microsoft is a different place from other companies in many ways. My last company was very political. The emphasis there was on your job title instead of what you did and said. At Microsoft, it's very different.