Steve Clayton likes the forest.

Let’s start with the easy stuff – what are you working on right now?
I’m working on Software plus Services strategy in a part of the company called Microsoft International.

You were also involved in that whole Blue Monster thing a year or two back, right? How is the Blue Monster aging?
Hugh McLeod did the cartoon, and he was just asking me, “What should we do now?”

I said, “We don’t do anything. We created this thing that’s out there — it splits opinion and inspires dialog. It’s got a life of its own.” I don’t push it, but I still get mail from people about it.

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Jeff Lin, guitarist for Seattle band Harvey Danger, talks about Virtual Earth 3D, work/life balance, and finding your destiny.

Jeff Lin doesn't want a corporate mother

Geek in question: Jeff Lin
Job title: Program Manager, Virtual Earth 3D

What are you working on right now?
Virtual Earth 3D is all about realistic representation of the world. We’ve got a couple hundred cities with photo-realistic imagery and 3D geometry. You can add photos, make movies, do tours. It’s actually super cool. I think it’s one of the coolest things that Microsoft is doing.

Do you have to say that because you work on it?
Naw. I feel pretty lucky that I got this position. I just started in this group five months ago. I’d been over at MSN since 2005, and when I applied for this job, I was like, there’s no way. I think I just lucked out.
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Ian Ellison-Taylor

The job title: General Manager, Presentation Platform and Tools

What are you doing right now?

I’m the General Manager of Presentation Platform and Tools, which is about 170 people who work on Windows Presentation Foundation. We also have the Jolt team internally, which is all the graphical animation media parts and Silverlight. And I have a tools team called Cider that delivers tools for both those groups to use. It’s your traditional developer/test/PM kinda organization.
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Suzanne Hansen

The job title:
Program Manager, Non-Professional Tools

How did you get here?

Well, I was doing my master’s degree at University of Victoria, working on an open source project for Eclipse and other very non-Microsoft things. Some people from Microsoft Research came by campus to look at student projects, and mine was slightly different because I was looking at how novices learn how to program.

I’d applied once to intern at Microsoft and didn’t even get an interview, and I’d thought to myself, “Fine. So that’s how it’s going to be.” But apparently the Microsoft Research team remembered my student project a year later when John Montgomery (my manager) was forming the Non-Professional Tools team, and I was called in.

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He’s a legend among Microsofties: the dude on the Segway wearing a glittering gold helmet. I’ve been stalking him for months, collecting sighting reports from breathless ‘Softies who’ve seen him at Target, seen him on 40th, seen him in elevators! And finally FINALLY, I tracked him down. Meet Stephan, aka The Golden Helmet.

A top speed of 12.5 mph!

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A Microsoft PM tracks her story from aspiring astronaut to apprentice to SDET to PM to UX student

Dana Badeen

The geek in question
Dana Badeen

The job title
Program Manager, Engineering Innovation (Windows Server)

So, Dana. What did you want to be when you grew up?
When I started college at the University of Michigan, I wanted to be an astronaut. After two years in the Aerospace program I realized that the chances of actually getting into the Astronaut program are worse than getting struck by lightning! And even if you get into the program, you only have a one-third chance of making it to space.

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Yay for the lolcat costume!

My favorite halloween costume

My favorite halloween costume

I am on the hunt for this gold helmet-wearing Segway rider. He’s been spotted all over campus (that’s my building in the background of this photo!) and I must speak with him. I want to know more about tooling around Redmond on a Segway — and why the gold helmet?