An Architect's View

Eric S Raymond - long-time champion of open source - relates Microsoft's attempt to recruit him (well, actually the form letter they send to all sorts of people - and his responses). It's an entertaining read, as are the 300+ comments from his readers. I received almost the exact same email from Microsoft (but from a Leslie O'Connor) a few weeks ago. It's the third or fourth time Microsoft recruiters have approached me over the last few years. I was more polite in my response this time than I have been in the past but I made two specific points in my response:

• My understanding is that Microsoft pretty much require staff to relocate to the Redmond area
• I've been a long-time critic of Microsoft and its products

I'll be curious if the recruiter responds. I've heard the first point from a number of sources and I'd be interested to know how true it is. Some companies require their staff to be local, some don't. I think it says something about the company culture and how much they trust their staff to work remotely (or not). On the second point, they clearly approach a number of outspoken critics and it's not clear whether it's through a genuine lack of research on behalf of their HR folks (as Eric suggests, somewhat tongue-in-cheek) or whether they want their supporters close and their enemies closer, so to speak. I'll post about any response I get from Microsoft but in the mean time I'd be interested to hear your stories of Microsoft's recruitment machine...

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p.s. I meant to mention that the links in the email to the AppointmentQuest system ("100% pure Microsoft-free") just brought up blank pages on every browser I tried...