The geek in question: Alex MacLeod
The job: Senior Test Manager, Exchange

Do you feel like the Exchange team gets no love? Like people see it as less sexy than, say, Xbox?
Totally. When people apply at Microsoft, they get this boilerplate form where they check their interest in different groups. And the only two check boxes I’ve ever seen marked are Games or Mobile Devices. And occasionally someone who thinks they’re a hardcore computer candidate will check OS, but no one ever chooses the Enterprise applications like Exchange. No one knows what it means and it doesn’t sound cool.

But see, I work on a product that for millions of people and millions of businesses across the globe, isn’t a “nice to have” feature. It’s a complete “must have.” There’s not a company in the world that doesn’t view their ability to communicate effectively with each other through email as total mission critical. And when it doesn’t work whole economies suffer.

Email is being used by United States Senate, and by global companies like AT&T or Marathon Oil, and by the educational system, the education board in London or South Africa. It matters. I work on something that actually totally matters. And not only does it matter — but it’s a great business.

What’s surprised you about working at Microsoft?
I was surprised at how much energy there was in the hallways. In my first couple of years here, I often told people it was like going back to school — but not like your freshman year where everybody’s just trying to figure out who they are and what they’re doing. But like, when you’re in your senior year and you’re really hitting your advance studies. Where you’re totally locked onto something that you are interested in and you’re surrounded by people who have chosen that same thing and the combined energy is just incredible.

People are running full throttle at these problems and they’re bouncing off each other. And it just makes f

or a really stimulating place to be. I imagined the software industry to be a much less dynamic kind of place to work. I was surprised to find how energetic it is.

There’s a lot of talk at Microsoft about work/life balance, but I heard that for you it’s work/fiddle balance?
I used to play guitar and I then got into some old time music — kind of like blue grass, but more Appalachian, “guy with the banjo on his front porch” type stuff.

I have a wood working interest, so about a year and a half ago I built a violin from a kit. I play at least once a week with a group and then practice almost every day — which is no fun for anybody but me.

I have a very patient and loving family. Amateur fiddling is definitely something you inflict on people.

Which of your fiddling skills get applied to work?
Imagining and creating something that does not yet exist, whether it’s an instrument or music or a piece of software— that’s a creative process, striving to bring something new into the world.

And it’s not just about bringing that thing into the world, but also about the joy of putting it to real use. You get to take this thing and make it do something surprising and amazing, like produce music. This thing that you built with glue and wood and wire produces music. And that’s just remarkably gratifying.

And the software is a really similar process — you imagine something, you struggle through bringing it into the world, and then you take it and you apply it and you get this great, surprising result out of it. And that’s remarkably gratifying, too.

I noticed that you’ve been turned into a cartoon on exchangeyourcareer.com. What’s that feel like?
I like cartoons — I watch cartoons. It’s one of the things I like to do with my kids. The day I got to come home and say, “Guess what — your dad is a cartoon!” was a total highlight. If only in my kids’ minds I felt that I had gotten some measure of the popularity that was so elusive back in high school…

Links, pweeze?
• exchangeyourcareer.com Where I’m a cartoon, and where you can learn more about the Exchange team.
• exchangelabs.com The most exciting thing to happen to email, ever.
• stringband.mossyroof.com Lots of the music I like to play, plus some links to the people who teach old-time music in Seattle….Greg and Jere Canote. Good times!
• You can find me on Facebook, too!