Landing my job at Microsoft: Part 1

Back in February 2013 I was on my last year of university and had my very first interview ever with... Facebook. Yes, I had a Skype interview with a Facebook employee and I failed it gracefully. Usually coding interviews consist of a few easy problems followed by a bunch of complex ones that hopefully will land you a job at one of these big companies. Turns out I had an easy first problem and for some reason got so nervous or the correct answer just did not come to my mind, I solved the problem but not in the most efficient way. I was so disappointing I had failed that interview after studying and going through books for about two months, that I started uploading my resume everywhere. My aim by the end of my university phase was to leave Argentina ASAP (that's usually the post-effect you get after being an exchange student).

So my resume ended up in a couple of job listing sites and for some reason I uploaded it to the Microsoft Careers site as well. Two months passed by and I got an email from a Microsoft recruiter saying he was going to be in Buenos Aires in three days taking some first instance interviews for a possible future job at the company. I ended up replying to that email after a few minutes and went for that interview on a Friday without going over any books since I could not be bothered about it. I was going to give it a shot, never thought I'd have made it afterwards. I had a chat with the recruiter and he gave me 10 minutes to solve as much as I could of three string matching problems. Then that was it.

They said the results were gonna be emailed in two weeks. Three weeks went by and nothing, so I emailed the recruiter and he said they were delayed but that I had made it and I was gonna be flown to Brazil in the coming weeks for a round of 4 interviews with long time Microsoft employees - that was gonna be the real deal. Basically I had no time to study since I was also dealing with my classes at the time so I just locked myself in my room and did as much as I could.
Lucky enough, one week before the interview, they sent an email explaining how Brazil was too risky at the time because of all those riots that were happening, and the interviews were going to be postponed for later that year -- no date set at the time. That was actually good news! I got myself the time I needed to really get ready for the tests.

The final round ended up being on September 3rd, 2013 in Santiago, Chile. I got in a plane and went to a different country for less than 24 hours, which for South America is NOT common at all -- maybe Europe, not South America. My Chilean buddy Marcelo (who I had met back in 2007 in Fargo, ND) picked me up at the airport and went for a dinner. I ended up at the Radisson hotel (paid by MSFT, of course) and I had the interviews the next morning at the Sheraton hotel which was just 7 blocks away from there. I never felt so stressed in my life, the interviews were too much to handle.
We were about 8 for the morning session and they sat us at this round table where one of the recruiters started talking about the process and how awesome Seattle was. She was right, Seattle is great, except for the rain part -- One of the guys there asked if it was true the city was so rainy and she had to lie saying that wasn't true (lol). After each interview they would gather us back to the round table for a quick 10 minutes break and then the next interview would follow. A curious thing at this point was that after each interview there were fewer and fewer people sitting at the table -- they were getting rid of us, only the best ones (or lucky ones) were making it to the end.
After the last interview we were 3 or 4 left and they called us one by one, I was shaking, I had no idea how I had done. I was quite confident on my first 3, but the last one took me forever to solve and was not even sure it'd be enough. One more thing: between interviews, the interviewers talk to each other regarding how good / bad you did and what weaknesses they found, to maybe test you deeper on those points.

They finally called me and gave me the offer to start working in Redmond, WA on October 2014 IF I could get my H1B working visa. I was gonna have to wait over an entire year to be able to start, but the wait was gonna be worth it. However things did not go as expected at that point in time, but I'll leave that for later.

That's me the day I had my very first interview in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires. I stopped by the Buenos Aires Book Fair afterwards and got a picture with Ernesto.

Moving into Minimalism

For some reason last night I decided to stay home and ended up watching this documentary about Minimalism (http://www.theminimalists.com/). I had NO idea this was actually a thing and that it existed as an idea or movement. I'm just gonna quote their definition and the actual documentary in english with spanish subs:

Minimalism isn't about any of those things, but it can help you accomplish them. If you desire to live with fewer material possessions, or not own a car or a television, or travel all over the world, then minimalism can lend a hand. But that's not the point. Minimalism is a tool that can assist you in finding freedom.

I could not even finish that documentary and was already picking up old clothes I had not worn in years. The next day I went and donated all of those, kept "only" about 20 t-shirts (I'm still working on that) and threw away hundreds of objects I had kept for over 10 years for no reason at all. It's not like I got rid of every single thing I had accumulated in the past, but I did let go a good amount since they were not serving any purpose.
I like collecting things (have a big collection of old trading cards, some comics and music CDs) and I did not throw any of those away. I'm clarifying that since I've talked to people who refuses to go through this since they justify that "every single object they own has a purpose and is being used regularly". Indeed as the documentary tells you, together with those thousands of videos you can find online about minimalism, the aim is to only keep things that are currently serving a purpose and make your life better and happier.
Since I moved to north america I've been skeptical of buying too many things but I still did every once in a while. I first moved to Canada and got a bunch of furniture when I rented my first apartment. During the following year and a half I did not purchase that many big things, which I'm happy about but still got some stuff. A year and a half after, I moved to Washington state and for some reason moving all of my stuff took an entire and exhausting day (moving only from Vancouver, BC to the Seattle area), I could not believe the amount of things I had accumulated in just a year and a half -- And consider I had got to Canada with only 3 suitcases! I crashed at a friend's house for about 3 weeks until I got my own place and it turned out to be a furnished studio -- The price and location made it worth taking it -- That's when I realized I was not going to be able to bring most of the furniture I used to own. My friend ended up getting my coffee table, TV stand, and even my bed frame. I moved to a studio with a table, a mattress and a mattress base together with --still-- a lot of unnecessary stuff.
Somehow this video has opened my eyes a little, and I hope this is just the beginning to a better life somehow by caring less about things. Hopefully it's useful to you as well.
See ya next time!