@amy_riveter
Do not put your entire self-worth in the hands of one person aka your boss. Build relationships with people all over your company and most importantly in OTHER companies and industries so your network becomes your superpower. Also build an external personal brand.
A bit ago
@Microsoft
announced 5 Wellness Days in 2021. These are “I can’t even” days that we can take off.
I took one the week they were announced. Now several people on my team have too.
Leaders: never underestimate how YOU openly taking time off can influence your teams.
1/I'm changing roles within
@microsoft
. Starting today I'll be reporting to the incredible
@jennylayfluffy
, our Chief Accessibility Officer for Microsoft.
I am *so honored* to be leading Accessibility tech for the whole company 🚀
TL;DR: I'm changing jobs within
@Microsoft
to build an AI and Copilot Extensibility Dev Program for All Of Our Copilots!
I started writing code in 1998 (!) and over the past 25 years (!!) I have seen the magical things that being a developer can do 👇🏼
1/ After 3+ years of leading the
#WindowsInsiders
program, I’ll be moving over to the MS Developer Relations
@azureadvocates
team to lead advocacy for Power Platform + tech skilling.
Please tag
@windowsinsider
with your Insider-related questions! <3
What’s the best piece of life advice you’ve ever gotten & from who?
Mine came from my grandfather who said: No one thinks that much about what you’re doing so don’t make decisions based on what others will think.
My so-called best friends laughed behind my back for four years while I struggled through a CS degree. Especially as I struggled through Operating Systems. This year marks 14 years I’ve worked on an Operating System...representing one to 16M+ people daily. What up now?
10 years ago, I saw a “renowned” speaker coach who told me to cut my hair, wear glasses, a gray t-shirt & no makeup when presenting because I was “way too feminine” to be believable.
I seriously considered it.
Then I ignored him & remained me. It always works out to be “you”.
* We’re hiring 500 engineers to work on Mixed Reality, Azure, XCloud in Lagos & Nairobi
* 100 engineers are employed in Nairobi
* We’re working w/local universities to ensure their curriculum is modern + create a talent pipeline
* Our investment on the continent has just begun
Life Update: When the news of
#Barbados
offering a visa to remote workers from all over the world came out, I fwd’ed to the cautious man I house (aka Chef Husband). He’s all like...OKAY 🤷🏽♀️
So we’re doing it! We leave in 2 wks & will be there working remotely for 3ish months 🇧🇧
Talking with a bunch of young people has me sending out the reminder.
To succeed in the tech industry, you DO NOT need to: drive a Tesla, own 7 hoodies, intermittent fast, be into Soylent, play video games, take microdoses of LSD (I know, WTF)
You just need to...create tech.
PSA: if a woman you don’t know comes up to you in public & starts talking to you like she knows you, please play along.
She might be trying to shake a person who is harassing her.
I just had to do this in a gas station market. Poor guy who I talked to was very confused 🙅🏽♀️
MacBook Air, lol. Not every woman is an Instagram influencer. Some of us need *actual machines* to do our jobs.
And that’s wine, not tea.
Don’t be basic.
Yo
@twitter
employees:
Thank you for all these years of hard work. Because of you, I have gotten my last 3 jobs and made some of my best friends in the world.
I’m here to refer you for any job that I’m able. Here is an Accessibility PM job we have open:
Everyone, please meet my nephew Kaden Sarkar Grundtner. C++ is obviously going to be his first language. Let’s make sure his first words are “
#include
” 👽
My 18 yr old niece is here & we were chatting. One of the reasons she chose Environmental Sci & not CS is because she didn’t fit in in HS computer class. She didn’t get the SciFi jokes & decided she’d rather help people rather than “be a loner tech nerd”
We lose them so young 😢
@LisaMCrosbie
By default, my camera is always off due to:
1. I have 10+ meetings a day and it’s exhausting
2. I’m not particularly camera ready
3. My bandwidth is terrible
The only exception is if I’m presenting something important to lots of people. Otherwise, the camera is off.
ProTip: never lie about where you work. People will find out & you’ll end up on a “Never Hire” list
Second pro-tip: never lie about working at Microsoft. I will find out & ensure you’re reported and blocked.
How many of you remember this day?
5 years ago we announced
#Windows10
+ the
#WindowsInsiders
program. How many of you signed up the very next day to try our first builds and join the shenanigans?
Happy 5 year anniversary Insiders--you have no idea how much you mean to us <3
Dear conf organizers: if you want me to speak at your thing, don’t expect my deck 6-3-1 months in advance. Expect it that day.
I like to create or customize talks for YOUR audience, not recycle the one from 6 months ago.
Why can’t I do it earlier? Cuz I give 2-3 talks a week
Those of us who are online WAY TOO MUCH had the Super Bowl of weekends.
This has probably been the most dramatic 3 days for enterprise software in history 😅
We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in continuing to support our customers and partners. We look forward to getting to know Emmett…
I’m doing a
#MentalHealth
experiment with my team starting Jan: no meetings Monday from 8 to noon.
We’re blocking that time to get our calendars in order for the week + some focus work (things many do on Sunday night)
We’ll run the experiment from Jan to June & report back!
Managers in the US: please don’t act like nothing’s happening.
After lonely holidays & the government situation, your teams might find it very hard to focus.
Cancel random meetings, make space for your teams to take care of themselves and their families.
Husband is watching some sort of show on his laptop.
Me peering over his shoulder: IS THAT LADY USING A SURFACE DEVICE TO COMMIT A CRIME?!
He:...
//why I’m not allowed to watch anything
A Pro-tip for tech-conference attendees: if you’re at a tech conference speakers dinner, and you’re having an intense conversation about your implementation stack, you don’t need to ask the woman you’ve been talking to if she knows “What a CPU is” ☠️
1/People are asking why at conferences like
#MSIgnite
, we do a description of ourselves (I’m an Asian woman wearing a floral dress etc). It’s to create an equitable experience for blind/low-vision folk or those who aren’t looking at the screen.
I took the day 100% off today. Lay in the sun & talked to the fam all day. Yes
#MSBuild
is coming up in 10 days and I have 864 things to get done, but preventing burnout? Item
#1
.
Feeling incredibly rested & ready to demo-prep bright & early tomorrow 🤩
Happy weekend all!
So my upper management doesn't think me wandering the streets with a Win 10 USB and upgrading any machine I encounter is the best idea I've ever had
//last time I pre-annouce my plans!
Not to be too much of a sap-fest but Chef Husband & I are incredibly grateful to Mildred & Richard Loving for fighting for the rights of interracial couples to be together. Happy
#LovingDay
all.
//I’m speaking at a virtual conference in a few months
Me: I’d love to add a speaker to the lineup on this event
Conf organizer: Sorry, our schedule is totally packed
Me: Great. They can have my spot then
Them: ...we’ll make room
//Make a bigger table, friends
Even once I knew, I didn’t talk about this. I was scared and honestly, didn’t know how my career would be affected. But hearing other people’s similar stories makes me feel waaay the heck more normal, so here we go:
#MicrosoftLife
Is there someone in your life who you think would benefit from a tech job? Show them you believe in them by tagging them below. Our new FREE course on
@udacity
will help them learn mobile app building and get a job WITHOUT having to learn to code first.
💙Happy 45th birthday
@Microsoft
❤️Thank you for being such an exceptional role model to all of us for showing what a mission-driven company should be during this terrible time.
💚I can’t wait to see what you do the next 45 years.
💛PS: you’ve never looked better! 💋
During my vaca, I was active 6-8 hours a day: talking walks, swimming, just moving. Was not tired at the end of the day.
This week, after 3 days of b2b meetings, I’m totally wiped. I had no idea sitting & staring a screen was be so tiring.
No wonder we’re exhausted 😴
@LisaMCrosbie
I had an internal meeting with someone that insisted that we all turn cameras on “so everyone knew we were engaged” or leave the meeting...so I hung up. I will take ANY excuse to skip a meeting 🤷🏽♀️
Our CEO spent half our our company wide all-hands yesterday talking about the injustice of being black in America...and opening the doors for people to share their stories. I could never work for a company that doesn’t stand for something.
If you fear losing your job over being an advocate, speaking out against police brutality and straight up murder...you might rethink your allegiance to your employer and your own moral compass...
We can't even express how special it is to announce DARK THEME IN FILE EXPLORER from
#MSBuild
.
#WindowsInsiders
have been asking for it for years and today, it's HERE <3
If we made a tutorial for a VERY entry level IOT project AND showed how to do security testing for it, who would be interested in learning? We're aiming to deliver this at some hackathon in the fall & on video.
//Getting ready for the year 2020 when IOTs > humans
Unpopular opinion: the
#PlaneBae
thing is creepy. I would NOT want the people behind me on a plane live-tweeting a private convo and tagging me on social. Neither would most people.
People: X got promoted
Me: Congrats to them!
People: Y got a $250k advance on a book deal
Me: Awesome news for a great author
People: Z’s fashion line got picked up by Nordstrom
Me: SUCH good news!
//I don’t want to do better than you. I want to do better than myself last week
This is my 18th year of
@Microsoft
events and honestly, I don’t care how convenient virtual events are…nothing beats the excitement of doing this IRL surrounded by 6k of my closest friends 🔥
Can’t wait to see allll the new demos and announcements at
#MSIgnite
this week!
Convos in my parents' house:
Mom: can you get the tomatoes from the basement?
Me: Hell no, I'm not going down there.
Mom: Why?
Me: That's where MURDERS happen!
Mom: Sigh. How are you still afraid of the basement?
Me: HOW TO YOU THINK I'VE REMAINED ALIVE THIS LONG?
Giving myself the gift of 4 weeks of day-job free vacation starting NOW. I’ve never taken 4 weeks off and never had a vacation without a goal.
I’m predicting lots of exploring
#Barbados
, batik painting & fashion design but it could just be lying on the beach for 4 weeks too 🍹