sean’s place

Thoughts from SEATAC

Greetings from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

I’m on my way back to San Luis Obispo, but I have been delayed due to heavy fog in San Francisco. I had a good day at Microsoft yesterday, with 6 interviews of ~1 hour each starting at 9:30 and ending at 17:30. 1 interview was non-technical (with the recruiter), and the remaining 5 were highly stimulating. I interviewed with developers and the development manager of the Mac Business Unit (responsible for Office on the Mac, VirtualPC, and utilities like RDC).

I think I have a reasonably good shot at a job offer from them. My interviewers seemed generally pleased with my performance, although I came up with solutions to their “whiteboard” problems that I generally felt were under-amazing. My solution for converting a number to a character array in C was, in one word, ugly. In two words, very ugly. I think I was able to successfully think through their whiteboard problems in a way they thought was acceptable. They said they liked how I broke down problems and tried multiple angles.

They graciously put me up at the Fairfield Marriott in Bellevue (about a 7 minute drive away on city streets) where there was free but highly unreliable Wifi. There was a delightful server at the restaurant the first night - from Oa’hu she was. Very funny lil’ ol’ lady.

I might write more later. I think I could be compatible with Seattle, just need to figure out a way to get Sarah up here with me…