Reflecting on my first week at Microsoft
I started at Microsoft as a UX & Product Designer on July the 15th, 2019. I spent the summer of 2018 as a UX Design Intern, and when presented with the opportunity to return to an organization I believed best aligned with my personal goals, mission, and aspirations as a designer and an individual, I had no other choice but to accept.
My job as an intern was to absorb as much as I could about the team I was on and the products they shipped, as well as to contribute to a specific area of exploration surround their work. I shared a little bit about my project as an intern at Microsoft on my website, which you can check out here.
My experience as an intern was excellent. I don’t know how best to describe it. It felt like both the most challenging and rewarding time of my life. My project space put me through the most intense idea generation and critique sessions I’ve ever been through, but also helped flush some of my best work out of me.
My first week at Microsoft as a full-time employee (FTE) has had a different pace around it — rather than being encouraged to hit the ground running, the general feeling has been one more of slowly easing into the team and into the project work. I’ve been encouraged to better understand the team and work landscape as it has changed and evolved from when I was last a part of the team. I’ve spent my time at one on one meetings with designers across the different verticals on the team to get a feel for their progress, their tools and their workflows, along with the products and features they own, and how they work with leadership.
My inclination towards work is almost always to try and hit the ground running. I have a personal sense of agency when it comes to adopting a new place of work. For me, the best way to get acclimated to a new place is to dive headfirst into the work, and figure out the ins and outs as part of the process. The move fast, break things philosophy. This, however, is the first part of myself that I already see being affected at Microsoft.
Microsoft has been adopting and implementing Professor Carol Dweck’s “Growth Mindset” as part of its cultural overhaul, spearheaded by CEO Satya Nadella. This couldn’t have been easy, as he so eloquently explained in his book, hit refresh (which I would *highly* recommend reading). Clearly, however, the principles that characterize the “growth mindset” philosophy, have slowly made their way around Microsoft’s nearly 300,000 employees worldwide.
This last week at Microsoft has left me with a feeling that it’s ok to fail. As an intern I spent a lot of time stressing myself out about failure, or the lack of an ability to deliver at the level my team was working at. This is a feeling I no longer feel (as strongly!) at work. It feels ok to fail so long as I take a deep breath, realize that I’m only human, and try again.
I’ve been slow to switch from a Mac to a Windows machine, and I’ve been slow to adopt new tools, but I have been steadily working at trying my best to learn. I’ve spent time to try and adapt to the new tools (both hardware and software), and I’ve spent time consistently reaching out for help where needed. I’ve spent time creating problems and solving them, and I’ve spent time finding solutions to problems I never thought I could.
Coming to Microsoft in an attempt to learn and grow as a designer and an individual is something I had wanted so badly for the last few years. My dream having come true still doesn’t feel real, but as the Teams messages come in, and people keep adding me to meetings on Outlook, I’m sure reality will set in, the work will chug along, and I will continue to learn and grow, and become the designer and people leader I know I can be.
