So it's counting.

Hey, everyone, I think I'm alive now.

I'm like a of course on.

Welcome to see Sojo on.

We have Tana cover here as our guests today.

Say hi, David Montana.

Hey.

Hi.

Okay, so Tana is actually a good friend of mine.

Uh, she was formally on exploring.

Turn on Microsoft on.

She was also a program manager in town, Microsoft.

And she is currently at the University of British University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Pursuing a degree in computer size.

Yeah.

Yes, that's me.

On Ben based format is gonna be First of all, we're gonna begin with about 23 minutes off angry or conversation.

It would be like to be a slash conversation where I'm gonna ask Donna about what she did at Microsoft as an exploring turn on a program manager in turn on what kind of experience he had.

Probably are too working on Mike's soft.

And while her interview experience was like to get into Microsoft on after that, we're gonna do, like, seven minutes off your audience.

You're on a session so we can take your questions.

So let's get started.

Um, first of all, Actually, we're, you know, good friends.

We we knew each other before this.

We got to know each other through, you know, this project called sound vision.

So maybe you can tell everyone a little bit about the projects that this project called sound vision.

Sure.

Good.

Um so sound vision, Woz and I less up of that transformed three D spatial information into sounds.

Um, pretty much it takes to field division into sound.

It was to help those who are visually impaired navigate unfamiliar environments.

Um, and pretty much used a device and the phone.

And we participated Erickson for that.

The Eriksen Innovation Awards, um, to help the future of city life.

Right.

Um, so just to give everyone a little bit of context, it was sort of like a student competition that was held by, you know, this company called Erickson.

You might have heard about it on it was in Sweden on there were, like, 800 teams at the beginning on we were like one of the top four who actually got to go to Sweden.

So that was really cool.

Yes, definitely.

My first time ever being Europe says, Yeah, I'm like at the end.

We didn't release the product, but like we work to is some, you know, blind and visually impaired people on.

I think, um, was there anything new you learned about, like that particular audience?

Um, just from someone We were making the up.

We did actually write it ourselves so we would actually buy for themselves and walk around the campus.

I think, if anything, I just got on the level of appreciation.

Um, and also a new level of understanding of the importance of accessibility.

Um, so I think that was the biggest learning that I got was except the importance of accessibility in software today.

Yeah.

Uh, yeah.

Sorry.

I think my audio audio was off for a little bit.

So, um, I'm gonna start asking you about you know more about yourself and software development on Microsoft.

So how did you get interested in software development in the first place?

Um, so I started off with whole school.

I was put into a programming course because of the other course were available all the time.

And I previously did a little bit of HTML with no pets.

They used to have those, like pages where you customize your profile, I guess.

Also had a little bit expected that.

But then when I wanted to have programming course, I started to like it.

So I continued that offer three years throughout high school, and after that, I went straight into university.

Dick up your science, so that's kind of a background, um, before before, you see, you know, I didn't have any, like, very strong experiences, more just like Jabba the basics of like like declarations of variables of stuff like Nothing bad, intense or extreme.

Right?

So I'm I've heard about Neil Pets, but I don't know like too much about how it works.

Yeah, a game where you girl pets and stuff kind of.

It's mystical.

It's this old game from, like the two thousand's, where you have a bunch of pets and I guess you grow them.

You also make him stronger.

You also, like, try to make money by playing games.

And I guess the main goal of it was to make money to buy a house, to keep your pets in and buy them clothes like accessories and things like that.

So, yeah, and then with that, people would make like profile pages to, like, highlight their pets and such And that had, like, a lot of like, you could put in your own custom see, assassination to mouth to make it look cooler.

Um, so I was, like, my first experience playing around code because I want to make my page look really cool.

Um, it doesn't really look that cool, but, you know, have a little kid with a lot of colors and everything.

A supposed to basic pain times available.

Right?

So you started learning HTML and CSS and maybe a few other things from Neopets, and you're like, I want to learn more about coating.

Um, yeah, well, actually, after that, it kind of dropped off for a bit.

But then when I would put back when I went into programming costs back in his school, it all started coming back.

And I started enjoying here again, and we used to make up Java games in that class.

So I started enjoying like, the u r u ex part of that as well, because it brought back then your pet stays, Um, as well as I just enjoyed the logic and the mathematics behind it while I was in high school, so that's kind of what started my interest.

Okay.

And then when you went to, you know, the UBC in Vancouver, you immediately choose computer science as your measure.

I did, Yes.

I went straight into your side.

And CBC have that option.

So okay.

On dhe eso At some point, you know, you were able to get your first interested Microsoft, I think, as an explorer in turn.

So could you tell everyone a little bit about what kind of experience you had prior to working there?

Sure.

Um so prior to that, I actually didn't have that much experience.

The Explorer program is for freshman or sophomore, those with without much experience in for science.

So I think the biggest thing that I had was they were looking for interesting career signs.

So more my involvements, rather than, like, concrete things that I've completed, I think because by that point, I didn't I didn't have anything Call keeps on sound vision or anything, but I did that interview, so it was more just like where I was showing my interests of me participating Sound vision, me doing extracurriculars outside of class that showed like my interesting for your size and coding.

Um, as well as you didn't need some knowledge of the instructors.

So I did study off of the cracking the coating interview book.

Um, that was a mean two things.

It was just showing my interest and knowing, like, link lists and a raise and stream manipulation.

Those are the main things from cracking the code book near the beginning of the book.

Okay, Uh, just just in case.

You know, some people came just now.

Sound vision Was that project we worked on us?

Basically, I owe us Hap on DA.

What was your interview like for the Explorer intern?

Right.

So I will first explain what exported.

So it's motor is a freshman program that allows you to explore both the three positions of being quality PM so program manager and dove in Microsoft.

So you do.

So you're gonna pot of two other insurance with you.

You bought you three of you work on the same project and you just cycled through the different rules.

Eso image of your process.

They kind of tested in all three rules.

So they would ask you some pudding questions on Ben.

They also asked me some more design related questions like, uh, design a calculator for the blind, for example, and where you put into consideration what the buttons should be like.

What?

The material you're gonna use for those buttons if there should be sound feedback, and it kind of just show like you have a higher thinking like to be more p m e to have a more design or just thinking as well as they also didn't have questions.

So the usual ones that you would find a crack in the coming interview?

Um, yeah.

Okay, that sounds good on what did you do as an explorer?

In turn.

So that was, like, for the entire summer for three or four months.

Yes.

It's for three months.

Told weeks, um, and as exporting turn, I worked under the edge.

T are gonna quality team.

Um, so we were building an internal tracking tool.

So what?

Second it is the, you know, Microsoft's new brother.

Right?

Then you browser, But all the windows.

Yeah.

So we're working on it to the edge team.

I'm specifically under the quality team and Microsoft's elevate the team that I was working on the focus more internal tools, making a lot of internal tools.

So the tool oh, we were responsible for was making about tracking tool.

We're pretty much those using edge internally could submit bugs easily into and to see bunks.

So, yeah, that's what we're doing.

We spent the first few weeks interviewing people around the around the floor and around her team, asking them what kind of things they want to see what data and being, like, interview all the stakeholders essentially.

And then afterwards he developed for that time.

And then finally we collected data.

So it's called a telemetry in Microsoft.

I'm about about our findings, um, to showcase the team.

Okay, so he was like a team off.

Just interns working on this project.

Yes, it was me.

Plus two interns.

So all the explore programs, it's you plus two other interns.

Nice.

Because you get a nice, like, little team bonding experience too.

Okay, So this, like you totally owned this project, and it was up to you.

Like where you wanted to build into this thing and what you wanted to do with it.

Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah.

They just kind of gave, like the overall like motivation behind it.

So we want to see bugs for the website.

And then it was just our response ability for how we want to do it and what we want.

Okay, let's Ah, move forward now A little bit.

So that was West.

I like after your first year in university or a second year.

That was my first year, first year.

And then after that, you you know, you return to Microsoft as a P M intern or program manager, in turn, as they as they call it.

Yeah, so was that like, uh uh, the year right after that?

Um, kind of it was.

So I was in the summer of first year, I did explore.

And in the fall of third year slash second years after my second year, I went to another program of the summer.

So that's why I pushed my internship to the fall.

Um, yeah.

So it was in the fall and to pick PM.

What happens with the Explorer program is after you do it, um, you you sometimes interview for it kind of depends on what you're originally placed in, but you interview for another rules, so I interviewed to be a p m.

Um, and that I was placed in you, right?

And, ah, just in case, you know, people don't know what is.

What is P.

M?

What is program manager and why did you choose that role for yourself?

Yeah.

So, Program manager, there's a lot of definitions of it, But I think the biggest thing is, um, from what my experience was is thio see, and to end the whole like, a portion of the system and just keep everything kind of on track, Um, as well as kind of help the business value of your projects.

So you kind of look a little bit more into the business side as well.

For me, the reason why I picked on it a picked up because many of the pants that I met, I really I'm liked a few of the things they were doing.

So first thing is, they had a full oversight of the whole project, which is really cool.

Like you asked me a question.

I don't know everything about something.

So if you don't know how to use a certain tool, if you have the PM about it most of times they actually don't like everything about it.

Versus if you ask the developer.

They're very concentrated.

So I like the like.

How do I say, Ah, hire view of the project And the other thing I like is that you also do code, So it's not.

All of this business you do code on do tend to code, at least for me.

It was like other smaller projects.

Or like, um, I see PM's protect code prototypes or co testing environments or just code like different things.

So you kind of get more flexibility from what I found in what you want to do on the terms of coding.

Um, I want to coach.

So when I told my manager like the first thing he says, I want a coat, that's what I like doing So he gave me a project purely, really decoding.

Um, and there are other PM's who don't want to come as much so they could do other things as well.

I think there's a lot of eso just to give everyone a little bit of context.