I've been working with people at Microsoft for nearly two decades in different circumstances. It's been interesting to me to work with developers, Microsoft consultants, and community people across the lifetime of SQLServerCentral, especially the last 5 years. For a long time, I never wanted to work there, but I've started to think I might find it to be an interesting company in the last couple years.

There are two good articles that talk about the ways that Microsoft has changed. The first is from the high level culture perspective and tries to explain how the mindset has changed. If I hadn't been witness to it, I wouldn't believe it. These changes really happened, and they were amazing to me. I've been going to Redmond for 15 years, often working with a couple groups and since Satya Nadella took over, I've seen these changes get implemented. I've watched teams grow and change, and learn to re-frame the way they look at their work. I think it's been a change for the better.

The second one is a little more technically detailed, and perhaps more interesting to anyone that would like to get their organization to adopt DevOps. There are some specifics with tools, but really read about the mindset changes and the feedback they use to improve software. I think too many managers think automation and features are all you need to implement and forget that quality, experimentation and learning are keys to this working well. Make sure you point those out to managers if you pass this along.

Not everyone at Microsoft made the transition. Some left, some were probably asked to leave. New people came, but plenty adapted, altered their mindset, and have bought into the way that the company has evolved. They've certainly gone from a company I wouldn't want to work for because of the stacked ranking and competition to an organization I'd now consider employment within. That's if they want someone remote in Denver.

I'm proud that Redgate is also moving in this type of direction. We've learned a lot from DevOp and we're learning that culture is important. We hire those that work well with us and help us build better tools for software developers in a team culture. Those that don't want to work with a team, work in a DevOps flow, and be accountable for their autonomy will probably move on. That's fine. We're learning who we are and implementing that into our staff. I've tried to do the same in my life, know who I am and be that. I hope you can do the same.