Turn to Microsoft Research and development position introduction

Q: Microsoft and many other software companies have a lot of research and development positions, the name is not the same, but also abbreviated, can you explain.

A: Many students do not know much about Microsoft's various research and development positions (discipline), and when we are halfway through the interview, we often find that a candidate is actually more suitable for other types of work. Of course at this point we can change the direction of the interview, but for the candidate is always not a good thing. I just happened to see an article on BBS, this article from the personal point of view, informally told the R&d in all directions of the characteristics, although not entirely correct, the introduction is not necessarily comprehensive, but we may wish to look at:

Ar:assistant researcher, assistant researcher, can also call fellow assistants, mainly at the "R" End of "R&d", the work is to read papers, to make ideas, to be rejected after the idea (so repeated n times), in order to submit papers before the deadline. After the initial validation of AR's ideas, and other departments to sell their ideas, and strive to turn ideas into products. The pleasure of AR is to be able to delve into a field, publish papers, apply for a patent, and each patent application (whether approved or not) can give itself a black cube stone (as shown in Figure 1). A lot of people on the table piled up a lot of stones, as if they have no distress. Ar sometimes does the same thing as RSDE. AR will later grow into Associate researcher (associate researcher), researcher (researcher), senior researcher, etc. In a word, it finally became a "scientist" that everyone dreamed of as a child.

Figure 1 Application for patented stone

Dev: The official name is SDE (Software Development Engineer), which is opposite to AR, at the "D" End of "r&d". They develop products in a product team in accordance with a rigorous process. After a product of MS is released, all members will get a small piece of tin (called "Ship-it Award", as shown in Figure 2, the name of the product and the date of release, the senior dev will collect a lot, they will seriously put these small iron sheets neatly, placed in the highest position of the desk. Dev has a lot of fun, here is not listed. But there are a lot of pain, such as the product cycle is sometimes very lengthy, the process is defined very well (sometimes it is too complete), such as to maintain the old version, such as to use more sophisticated technology, rather than the most fashionable things to develop products. In addition, Dev is responsible for one or several modules that are not necessarily dealing with end users, not necessarily the core modules of the entire product. Do a good dev to live in the code, the code and the various details of the platform to be very familiar with the very bottom of the technology, some people are happy, some people are not. Dev has a lot of career paths, and if you just want to delve into technology and do a lot of management work, Dev can be a very advanced engineer until an outstanding engineer (distinguished Engineer). Of course, Dev can also grow into a development director (Dev Leader), development manager (Dev Manager), and so on.

Fig. 2 The small iron sheet ship-it by dev

Test: The official name is software Development Engineer in Test (Sdet), referred to as test or sdet (read as S-det). This post seems to have no dev and ar cool, but very promising, first of all, Chinese students for a variety of reasons (do not understand, do not look, do not come) is not willing to do this work, so the company to find people very urgent, relatively easy to enter. The so-called bitterness of this position (also reflects some people's prejudice and misunderstanding) in the traditional sense, sdet have to wait for the home (Pm/dev) to give you something, you can "test". However, modern software engineering requires that test be actively involved in project planning from the start of the project, understand customer needs, develop test plans, design test architectures, implement test automation, and so on. In fact these are all development work, so they are called SDE in Test. And Sdet can learn more about how the various modules of the product work together and how they are actually used by users. Understand the program from outside the code, this is the music of the test. That "one weeks before the release of the product to be tested by testers" is not going to happen at Microsoft. Those who only click the test with the mouse and then report the bug are called Software Test Engineer (STE), which is usually outsourced to other companies. In a football match, test is the last line of defense, and if you're not defending well Bug,bug will go to the customer, so test work is very important. The development of test is similar to that of Dev, which has been to the VP, which specializes in test work.

PM: This is probably the most misunderstood business, in short, program Manager is doing everything except development and testing. Some of the alumni asked, "I don't have to test my programs, so what else is there besides development and testing?" Developing business software in a company is not as simple as having 10 dev and 5 test to develop the next version of MSN Messenger together, so how long will it take us to finish. What things to do first, what to do after. Halfway through the project, the leader said we'd change to live messenger, and what that name meant. How to adjust the progress. At the end of the two months, it looks like we're not going to be able to do all the work. You're not the boss of Dev and test, so why should they listen to you? This is also the pain of PM. PM's music seems to be that they can take control of a product, a broad understanding of the industry, and users to deal with, delegation team to attend various meetings, the company's internal exposure is also relatively high.

RSDE: OK, let's take a look at RSDE (study SDE), this is Microsoft Research Asia a special team. The fun of RSDE is to have access to all the latest research and use it to solve challenging problems. The RSDE is that projects are V0.1 editions, and most successful projects are transformed (Transfer) into product groups and marketed by others. RSDE is responsible for AR and PM (even test) when working with the research department. At first, Rsde had neither R's Black stone nor D's ship-it small iron tablets. Rsde involved in a project with greater risk, often less than expected, or will fail (this is also the characteristics of scientific research). After the project failed, Rsde buried the body of the project, dried his own blood and had to find new areas and new projects. RSDE also has the task of "innovation", a word everyone would say, but it is not so easy to do, there are so many people in the world thinking about computers, where you can do more than anyone else. This is also the fun of RSDE. Some students have a strong ability, a wide range of interests, but temporarily do not allow themselves to further study which area, then may wish to do rsde. Good rsde, their work to promote the research, and then to the market, so that both can get black stone, and can get ship-it small iron tablets. I personally think that there is a chance to do Rsde is a very proud thing, the equivalent of the army as a commando, very good, very strong.

Q: It looks really dazzling ...

A: In short, each type of position is very important, there are reasons for existence, there are good prospects for development, have their own pain and joy. Microsoft is very large, Microsoft China Research and Development Group (CRD) has a number of different institutions and departments, which also means that there are many opportunities for students to be able to try Ar, Dev, Test, Rsde, PM positions.

From the beauty of programming--Microsoft Technical Interview Experience (electronic version of the sample download address: http://student.csdn.net/space.php?do=course&ac=detail&cid=353)