A recruiter contacted me through LinkedIn regarding an Irvine, CA position.

I answered their call and was asked to complete a questionnaire. Following this, I was interviewed by the recruiter. During the interview, I mentioned that California was not my primary choice. The recruiter then added an Austin, TX position to my "Action Center" profile.

Subsequently, I was contacted and underwent a second interview for a technical role. I was truthful and stated that I am an AWS architect with some limited experience and comparative knowledge of Azure.

The technical interview was conducted by an individual whose AWS questions I explained thoroughly and, from my perspective, to his satisfaction.

He informed me that the position would involve a "cattle call" scenario in a city where three teams would spend approximately two hours with candidates. I was advised to be prepared to propose a solution if I were called for a third interview.

I did not hear back from them until two weeks later, when someone at Microsoft added a Chicago posting to my "Action Center" area. The following week, I received a form letter informing me that I had not been selected for the Austin position, and the role was subsequently removed from my "Action Center" board.

Later, I received an inquiry from another Microsoft recruiter, this time a woman. She inquired about my interest in the Irvine position again. I responded patiently and received another questionnaire, which was slightly more detailed than the first. The questions were well-posed and provided good practice, so I answered them with greater detail. I also explained my previous stage in the process and suggested that I might not be a suitable candidate for her consideration. We then scheduled a meeting via email.

During our email exchange, I carefully explained what had transpired. After reviewing her Microsoft recruiting system, she informed me, with apologies, that there had been some confusion. She advised me to contact her if I didn't hear back within a week, and she would follow up with me.

It has been over a week, and I have not contacted her or the original recruiter.

Evidently, Microsoft has some internal issues with its recruiting process. These firms appear to be third-party contractors hired by Microsoft to handle recruitment. They seem unorganized, and while I appreciated being considered, I was somewhat disappointed by the communication, or rather the lack thereof, and the overall results.

Reasons/Motivation for a Career Move

Why Microsoft?

Key Technology Area:

• Cloud (Infra/AppDev/DevOps)

Describe Your Role:

• More PreSales or Solution Architect?

If PreSales:

• How many sales people or clients do you have?

If Solution Architect:

• Describe your cloud work or cloud specialization:
  • Infrastructure or AppDev or DevOps?

Which cloud platforms are you most proficient on (AWS, Azure, GCP, etc.)?

Do you have cloud solution application certifications? Which ones?

Explain your cloud migrations:

• Lift and Shift
• Refactoring
• Replatforming

Do you script infrastructure for migrations to the cloud? If so, what scripting language/tool do you use (e.g., PowerShell)?

Infrastructure:

• Talk to me about core IaaS work you have done in the cloud: (virtual machines, load balancing, storage, Active Directory, automation, disaster recovery)

AppDev:

• What is the last application you wrote for the cloud? Cloud Native? or App rearchitecting?
• What is your language of choice in coding apps for the cloud? (.Net, Java, C#, C++, Python, etc.)
• What did your application address in your client’s business? (finance, reporting, IoT of products, billing, payment processing, chatbot, etc.)
• If you have never used an API, how quickly can you come up to speed to work with it?

DevOps:

• What technologies have you used for DevOps? (Chef, Puppet, VSTS, Docker, Kubernetes, any container technologies/orchestration)

Without describing the technology used, what was the largest client cloud project you worked on, and what was the business driver for the project?

Tell me about any experience you have had when you led the discussion on moving to the cloud. Who was your audience when you presented the how, what, when, and why the move to the cloud? (LOB, IT, C-Suite)

Are your clients internal, or facing externally to clients?

What have been the biggest roadblocks or challenges you have faced when suggesting a move to the cloud? How did you influence the decision for that move? What was your role in that presentation to influence business decisions?

What industries do you have experience in?