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Any Microsofties Present?

Started by Telamon Jun 29, 2006 at 12:19 PM 33 replies 5.5k views

Original Post

Jun 29, 2006 at 12:19 PM

I've spent the last two days interviewing for various 3D graphics and games-related dev teams at Microsoft in Redmond (specifically with the DirectX team, the Halo 2 Vista team, and Microsoft Games Studios). I'd be interested to hear stories of people working in these and related areas within Microsoft. I never thought I would be doing game development for anything else besides a hobby, given how awful games programming jobs tend to be (EA...), but some recruiters really liked our senior programming project (an RTS that is played on a TabletPC with only a stylus and voice input) and got me some interviews with some cool teams. One of my other serious job options is a position at ROBLOX (roblox.com - they do some really cool stuff - basically they make 3D worlds built from Legos), a small startup company (I would be the 4th person on the team). I figure I would have more creative latitude at ROBLOX and have a larger role to play vis a vis actually developing core code, both of which are appealing. The downside is I don't think they would pay as well as MS and they don't have the visibility that working on Halo 2 would, for example. PS - Anyone want to guess the line count of the Halo 2 source?

ChurchSkiz

126

ChurchSkiz

Jun 29, 2006 at 12:30 PM

Quote:
Original post by Telamon

PS - Anyone want to guess the line count of the Halo 2 source?

Everything included? 9.8 million? That is a total stab in the dark.

Congrats on the offers.

Mercury

Jun 29, 2006 at 12:39 PM

Quote:
Original post by ChurchSkiz
Quote:
Original post by Telamon

PS - Anyone want to guess the line count of the Halo 2 source?

Everything included? 9.8 million? That is a total stab in the dark.

Congrats on the offers.

No way. I'd guess a hell of a lot smaller. Like.... Around 750k-2M would be my guess.

invicticide

Jun 29, 2006 at 2:24 PM

Quote:
Original post by Telamon
PS - Anyone want to guess the line count of the Halo 2 source?

Seven, including whitespace:

#include "hit_game.h"int main(void){    make_hit_game();    return 0;}

EDIT: ^^^ Where's all that extra whitespace at the end coming from?

That *is* how hit games are made... right? [looksaround]

-Josh

Enselic

Jun 29, 2006 at 3:36 PM

Quote:
Original post by Telamon
PS - Anyone want to guess the line count of the Halo 2 source?

Yes please! 642918?

msn12b

Jun 29, 2006 at 3:44 PM

Whatever the number is it pales in comparison to the content size.

A better question would be what was the biggest set of content in Halo 2?

MSN

Ravuya

298

Ravuya

Jun 29, 2006 at 4:03 PM

Quote:
Original post by msn12b
A better question would be what was the biggest set of content in Halo 2?

Audio. Dur. I know what you do for a living.

CTar

114

CTar

Jun 29, 2006 at 4:05 PM

Quote:
Original post by Telamon
PS - Anyone want to guess the line count of the Halo 2 source?

Does that include external libraries? If it includes the game engine I would guess 1.5M lines of code.

And congrats.

JBourrie

138

JBourrie

Jun 29, 2006 at 4:16 PM

#include <iostream>using namespace std;void main(){   cout << "Halo World";}

Moe

496

Moe

Jun 29, 2006 at 4:22 PM

I am going to guess around 1.5 million as well.

CpMan

Jun 29, 2006 at 4:33 PM

I intered for two summers in a row on the Visual C++ teams, and I start on September 5th full time. Microsoft is a great place to work.

jollyjeffers

245

jollyjeffers

Jun 29, 2006 at 6:17 PM

Quote:
Original post by Telamon
I've spent the last two days interviewing for various 3D graphics and games-related dev teams at Microsoft in Redmond (specifically with the DirectX team, the Halo 2 Vista team, and Microsoft Games Studios). I'd be interested to hear stories of people working in these and related areas within Microsoft.

If you keep an eye out there are a fair number of Microsoft employees who drop by GDNet every now and then (we also get a mention in one of these videos). Although from what I've seen they tend to appear in the technical forums rather than the lounge, but I could be wrong...

As for getting some insider knowledge, check out the Channel 9 videos - you can get quite a good insight into the "behind the scenes" stuff.

Checking out the various developer blogs can also get you some useful insider bits-n-pieces.

Jack

Telamon

Author

Telamon

Jun 30, 2006 at 1:05 AM

The line count is about 1.6 million. Clearly this does not include the precompiled libraries that they use (which would be most of windows, probably).

Promit

Mod

1,082

Promit

Jun 30, 2006 at 1:36 AM

I'm an intern at MS right now, though I can't actually reveal what I'm working on. Frankly, I love it here. I show up and leave whenever I want, I wear whatever I want, I'm being treated as a real member of the team and being given real work, and I have input into everything just like everyone else, and I really appreciate that.

[Edited by - Promit on June 30, 2006 1:36:02 AM]

sjelkjd

120

sjelkjd

Jun 30, 2006 at 2:01 AM

I'm a developer for Expression. I know some people in the various gaming groups though. Bungie has by far the best offices you can get at Microsoft, cuz they're right in downtown Kirkland. I also know some people in building 10, though they're working on Avalon, rather than DirectX :)

mutex

274

mutex

Jun 30, 2006 at 4:08 AM

I've been working fulltime there for almost a year now (interned I think 2 years ago). I've worked on XPS printing, which let me interact with a variety of Avalon people (in fact, XPS is a strict subset of Avalon). Really awesome stuff on the inside. Now I'm working on a Vista component that I guarantee nearly every Vista user will use :)

That's the neat thing about Microsoft. There aren't many places where you can work on something with as much visibility as Windows, Visual Studio, DirectX, etc. And to continue what Promit said, they treat new hires as full team members as well. You progress your career as far as you want.

Emmanuel Deloget

431

Emmanuel Deloget

Jun 30, 2006 at 5:21 AM

Quote:
Original post by mutex
Now I'm working on a Vista component that I guarantee nearly every Vista user will use :)

Ctrl+Alt+Del support? (just kidding) [grin]

gavco98

141

gavco98

Jun 30, 2006 at 5:30 AM

Quote:
Original post by Emmanuel Deloget
Quote:
Original post by mutex
Now I'm working on a Vista component that I guarantee nearly every Vista user will use :)

Ctrl+Alt+Del support? (just kidding) [grin]

Its either that or a version of IE7 optimised for viewing porn......

Machaira

Mod

338

Machaira

Jun 30, 2006 at 7:33 AM

Quote:
Original post by sjelkjd
I'm a developer for Expression.

I just downloaded the Interactive and Web Designers, but haven't really played with them much yet.

Riviera Kid

113

Riviera Kid

Jun 30, 2006 at 7:38 AM

im an intern at microsoft ireland.
today is my last day.
it rocked.

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