Microsoft
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” - Bill Gates
Microsoft
I’ve worked at Microsoft across multiple engagements - and was asked to return to Microsoft Research more than once. MSR doesn’t typically ask people back unless the work warrants it.
Microsoft Research: SPOT Team
My journey at Microsoft started in MSR on the Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) team. I was part of the very small team that shipped the .NET Micro Framework, enabling developers to build on that platform.
I was on the networking team handling FCC compliance and radio frequency work - collaborating closely with electrical engineers. My electronics background (I was addicted to Radio Shack as a kid) let me contribute meaningfully to hardware-adjacent problems as a software engineer.
Working at MSR meant being surrounded by PhDs and experts in fields I adored. I did what anyone should do in that situation: asked questions about everything and learned as much as I could. I consider myself fortunate to have worked with the best in the world - and even more fortunate that they treated me as a peer.
MSN Labs: Azure Infrastructure & Security
At MSN Labs, I was part of the team that helped build what became Azure. My role was cybersecurity-focused: automated DFIR (Digital Forensics and Incident Response) and discovery systems. When nodes went down, my systems could report the problem and trigger automated mitigation - or at minimum, collect the logs needed to diagnose issues that weren’t hardware failures.
Being part of Azure’s early development meant understanding not just how to use cloud services, but how to build them. The decisions made at the infrastructure level ripple through everything built on top.
Microsoft Research: Project Springfield / MSRD
I returned to MSR to work on Project Springfield, publicly known as Microsoft Security Risk Detection Service (MSRD). This wasn’t just research - it was a production service with paying customers. We couldn’t take down production or push a deployment whenever we felt like it. Organizations depended on this service and trusted it with their security testing. Automated whitebox fuzz testing to find vulnerabilities before attackers do, delivered as a real product with real uptime expectations.
The service was discontinued in 2020, but some of the technology we built lives on in OneFuzz.
Microsoft Hacking STEM
I also worked on the Hacking STEM team, part of Microsoft Garage - Microsoft’s internal incubator for experimental projects. My contribution: turning Excel into a JTAG debugger that kids could use for science projects.
This role included user accessibility studies - watching through the glass as teachers ran sessions with real classrooms. I saw the moment when kids understood what they could do with technology. The light that comes on when a child realizes they have power over something they thought was beyond them.
Taking complex tools and making them accessible matters to me. Giving kids the joy of understanding and the safety of capability is something I want to keep doing.
What I Learned
Building Cloud Infrastructure from the Ground Up: The decisions made at the infrastructure level ripple through everything built on top.
Research to Production Pipeline: How cutting-edge research becomes shipping products. The translation from academic ideas to production systems is a skill unto itself.
Cybersecurity Experience: Multiple roles involving security - from automated DFIR at MSN Labs to whitebox fuzzing at MSR. Finding vulnerabilities before attackers do. Thinking adversarially about systems.
Fortune 50 Operations: Understanding how a company of Microsoft’s scale operates, makes decisions, and ships products.
The advice I received from brilliant people at MSR shaped my career: stay a contractor until you’re “ready” and “sick of it”, move around the industry, learn daily - including from your own mistakes - and then settle down into a “work home” built on mutual respect and a sincere desire to keep learning while building the future.