Jack of All Trades

Yesterday, I finished up some SQL views that will allow our internal customers to create ad hoc reports about beta program participation. This is a task that had been languishing for some time, waiting for a developer to come available who could do the work. But now, I'm doing it.

At Microsoft, there are six general disciplines defined on a team: Program Management (feature design and schedules,) Product Management (requirements and customer interaction,) Development, Test, User Experience (usability, documentation, and interface design,) and Release Management (deployment.)

With the work I just did for these views, it's my first work as a developer at Microsoft. My primary role is as a program manager. We don't have a dedicated product manager, so we're light on representation there, so I've picked up some of that work, too. I've filed as many bugs as anyone on the test team and have even had some days where my bug report total exceeds that of the entire test team combined. And I recently contributed as editor for our administration site's documentation. When we were deploying, I worked with the Passport team to make sure our site met compliance. That means I've now done some work in every discipline. And that is cool.