Today (July 10th, 2009) Microsoft and I parted ways, and I will no longer be sharing the hallowed electronic ether with the great community of people I have come to know and befriend in my 8 years at the company.
I have sure had a lot of fun in Product Marketing (back with SMS & MOM), Program Management (blame me for the Windows Firewall, the Windows Filtering Platform and Teredo), and Product Planning. I am actually looking forward to finding new opportunities. Microsoft feels like a BIG company these days, and I am looking forward to working somewhere with a little less process and role specialization. Frankly, I understand that it is necessary for a company of Microsoft’s size to adopt a more methodical process, and bureaucracy. I look forward to working in an entrepreneurial environment.
I will certainly miss the discussions and debates of the Recession Study Group (a club I setup at Microsoft back in 2005).
I feel like I have done some of the best work of my career over the past year. Some of the initiatives I started are bearing real fruit (e.g. putting plans in place to FINALLY manage our Windows APIs), and my research around 64-bit computing and the needs of web developers have gotten real traction. I see lots of groups using my research in their presentations. At least I can leave feeling proud of my work, and knowing that I have made a real impact.
If anyone wishes to reach me just write michael@surkan.com. Feel free to join my network on LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/in/msurkan). You might want to also check out a new group I created on LinkedIn called “WorkFree”, to help people find pro-bono work to further their careers.
Cheers,
Mikhail
P.S. I am certainly looking for job opportunities right now, and would love to hear any ideas as to people or organizations that might be interested in a scrappy program or product marketing type. I will likely do some contract work in the short-term, while looking for new opportunities, so I am open to temporary projects too.
