I went on another field trip, this time to California, where I visited ‘Softies at three different Bay Area offices. First up: Palo Alto, where I visited the Danger — makers of my beloved Sidekick, and recent Microsoft acquisition.
Being a program manager, biking 9000 miles ... it's all the same to Carolyn
The geek in question: Carolyn Bierman
The job title: Program Manager II, Entertainment & Devices Division.
How long did you work for Danger before the company was acquired by Microsoft?
I was employee #17, and have been with Danger for eight years. I was an engineer for five of those years, and then after a three month sabbatical to ride my motorcycle around the country, I started doing program management.
You know how if your Sidekick gets run over by a bus, you can buy a new one and download all the information off the Danger servers? That’s the service I’ve been working on with Danger for the past three years — and now I’m doing something very similar for Microsoft.
So you went from working for a company of about 300, to now working for a company of over 80,000. Did you have an identity crisis when Danger got acquired?
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It took a proposal from Steve Ballmer to entice a promising computer science student to consider a career at Microsoft. Now she’d like to see more women and minorities follow her lead.
By Fred Albert
March 3, 2008
Steve Ballmer asked Miya McClain to intern at Microsoft when the two appeared at a technology event five years ago.
Miya McClain was 18 years old when Steve Ballmer made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.The college freshman was at a Seattle hotel demonstrating an internship project for a gathering of high-tech executives when Ballmer stepped up to the dais. After delivering his keynote address, he stood before the crowd and offered McClain an internship at Microsoft.
“I wasn’t going to apply for the Microsoft college internship,” confided McClain, now 24 and a software design engineer in test for Office. “I was just going to intern at other, smaller companies like I had in high school.” But when the CEO of Microsoft offers you a position in front of a room full of industry hotshots, how can you say no? Representatives from other companies swooped in to counter Ballmer’s offer, but it was too late. The die was cast.
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