Interviews at Microsoft - Part II
I first part of my post I wrote how I got to the Redmond to interview for the position in VSTO team. One tricky part of these interviews or better to say the whole process is that I am not a US resident and therefore I need a working permit/visa or H1B. Yep, and H1B can be complicated. The problem is that US allows only a definite number of visas to be granted each year, moreover the visas are granted only once per year.
After I finished my interviews I got to the hiring manager office and he said that they would like to extend me an offer. You can imagine that I was speechless and if I remember correctly the first thing I said was: "I didn't graduate yet!". HM said that recruiter would send me the offer and contact me to go through the details.
I got the offer and everything but unfortunately I they could not apply for visa because I didn't have a degree yet. That's why the whole process stopped and the first thing I needed to do was to finish my exams (I had 12 exams at that time - that was June 2006) and to graduate as soon as possible. Only thing separating me from my position at Microsoft were 12 exams and diploma ... That's a quite big obstacle, but fortunately I managed to overcome it. In 10 months I did all the lab work, exams and diploma and I graduated in March. That was enough time for them to apply for my H1B.
Long story short - after some paperwork, printing, scanning, emailing, signing my H1B was approved! That means in October I will be leaving Slovenia and moving to Redmond, Washington to work for Microsoft.
When I started studying computer science, I didn't ever even dreamed about moving to USA and working for Microsoft. To be honest I couldn't even imagined what will happen after I finish my studies. Later, when I got somehow 'involved' with Microsoft through Imagine Cup, Milijon za vzpon (I spent 1 month working at Microsoft in Dublin, Ireland), Channel9 (thanks to Channel9 I went to the PDC in Los Angeles) - I though Microsoft would be a great place to work at and I followed that. During this couple of years I met a bunch of really great people (not only abroad, but also in Slovenia); maybe they didn't directly help me to get this position, but definitely they had some impact on me. If you're a student in Slovenia - go and register for the Imagine cup later this year - you can't loose anything but you can gain a lot! This is how I got started.
I guess if it worked for me, it can work for anyone. You just have to have a dream, set the goals and work, work, work. Try to specialize yourself for a single "technology" (like I 'specialized' for VSTO :); believe me there's not enough time to cover everything and even to try everything out.
Instead of dreaming your dream - you can live it instead. Or as a fellow blogger says "Live your life and leave a mark" (hopefully I translated it ok :)).