PROJECT REPORT

ON
H.R. PROCESSES ASSOCIATED WITH
TWO KEY JOB ROLES AT MICROSOFT
(In partial fulfilment of completing the course of Human Resource Management)
Term-III

Submitted To:
Dr. Priyanka Jaiswal
Professor, HR
FORE School of Management
New Delhi

Submitted By:
Vaibhav Bansal (261175)
Vibhu Goel (261176)
Vidhan Jain (261177)
Vikas Joshi (261178)
Yash Jain (261179)
Zoya Fatima Azhar (261180)

February 24, 2018

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We would like to thank our professor, Dr. Priyanka Jaiswal, for her constant support in helping
us make this project. The various HR functions & concepts taught by her have been of
immense help to us in making this project. Without her help, this project would not have been
possible.

We are also grateful to the employees of Microsoft for taking out their valuable time and
sharing their personal experiences of working at the company. Their first-hand experience
helped us to gain knowledge on the entire functioning of the two positions at Microsoft. Their
support is highly appreciated in helping us to complete this project.

Also we would like to acknowledge Mr. Aman Gour, Program Manager at Microsoft for
helping us to get the primary data.

Group 10

FMG 26 Section C

Vaibhav Bansal (261175)

Vibhu Goel (261176)
Vidhan Jain (261177)
Vikas Joshi (261178)
Yash Jain (261179)
Zoya Fatima Azhar (261180)

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgement ................................................................................................................... i

Letter of Transmittal...............................................................................................................ii

Executive Summary ............................................................................................................. iii

Table of Contents .................................................................................................................. iv

Introduction: Organization and Organizational structure .............................................................. 1

Indian Banking Industry: Overview............................................................................................ 3

Punjab national bank: company profile ....................................................................................... 7

Management hierarchy at pnb .................................................................................................... 9

Pnb: the beginning of innovation through i.t. strategy ................................................................ 17

Appendixes ............................................................................................................................ 36

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 POSITION 1: MSIDC- SOFTWARE ENGINEER
Microsoft in India usually hires for two positions i.e., Microsoft India Development Centre
(MS IDC) and Microsoft IT (MSIT). The talent at the top goes to MS IDC programme and
talent just at the bottom of the top usually goes to MSIT.

MSIDC (Microsoft India Development Centre) is the Indian Development centre of Microsoft
Corporation, headquartered at Redmond, USA. It is the main Software Development unit of
Microsoft India and have sub-teams for most of the Microsoft Software Divisions - Server and
Tools Business (STB), Microsoft Office Division (MOD), Microsoft Business Solutions
(MBS), Windows and Windows Live Division (WWLD) and Online Services Division (OSD).
Whenever we talk about Microsoft products say Windows, Visual Studio, Windows phone etc.
all of these are developed at MS IDC.

MSIT (Microsoft IT) on the other hand develops internal business applications for Microsoft
Corporation. It monitors and supports global IT operations. MSIT India also manages
Microsoft's global data centres corporate network, servers and various other infrastructure
management activities. IT provides the infrastructural backbone for efficient technical
functioning of various divisions within Microsoft. In other words one can say it's a
systems/technical support division for other divisions of Microsoft.

Apart from this Microsoft India also have this third division by the name: MSGD (Microsoft
Services Global Delivery). Microsoft Services Global Delivery is the delivery arm of Microsoft
Services worldwide and also known as MGSI – Microsoft Global Services India. It basically
deals with deploying Microsoft Services and Applications to global clients.

Selected Position for which finer details are carried out:

Software Engineer (SWE)

Seniority Level: Entry Level

RECRUITMENT AT MICROSOFT
Microsoft believes in recruiting extremely intelligent staff, favoring intelligence over
experience. Microsoft is an aggressive recruiter and is often the first company to offer jobs to
elite graduates at campuses and career fairs across the world.

The selection process focusses more on problem solving and thought‐process & composure
‐testing exercises rather than the actual technical interviews. Interviewing process is seen as
one which would push the interviewees to the limit of their creative and analytic abilities rather
than their familiarity with a computer programming.

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A short-listed candidate will be invited in for some initial discussions, progressing through up
to four interviews. These interviews 1:1 or by panel, and can be face to face or by telephone or
VTC.

JOB DESCRIPTION
Microsoft IDC CSE is for technology professionals who want to be strategic business partners
and the first to create innovative solutions using Microsoft’s enterprise products and services.
Microsoft IDC CSE provides career growth opportunities, and a rewarding, flexible work
environment so that one can better integrate professional and personal life. Unlike other
organizations, Microsoft IDC CSE employees make global impact on millions of customers
and tens of thousands of employees who use Microsoft software and services.

Consumer Sales & Marketing Engineering within Microsoft IDC CSE, supports Microsoft’s
Retail stores globally, serving hundreds of millions of customers throughout the world. The
Consumer Sales & Marketing Engineering team is chartered to Protect, Enable & Improve
operational performance with the latest enterprise technologies fueling with predictive
analytics for the stores. The pace of innovation is intense as Microsoft moves towards a Mobile
first, Cloud first vision—serving up new business models, new fulfilment channels, new
markets and exciting new products that help people and businesses throughout the world
realize their full potential. This is a compelling opportunity to join a vigorous, rapidly-growing,
successful organization that is committed to diversity and continuous improvement.

This position presents tremendous opportunity to deliver an amazing experience to consumers

around the world and influencing how they view our products. Microsoft is in the process of
enhancing the productivity of their salesforce with Dynamics 365 and are an agile team, with a
great track record, shipping every two weeks. Microsoft look for a Software Engineer with
Dynamics 365 portal development (ADX studio), administration and deployment skills,
excellent communication, and leadership skills, coupled with passion for quality, agility and
efficiency.

JOB RESPONSIBILITIES
The candidate will be responsible for working as a Software Engineer with a team of strong
software engineers providing technical Solutions and implementation of Dynamics 365 for the
Retail business. The candidate will be required to be hands-on, bring innovative approaches
that continuously improve our ability to deliver faster, better and cheaper solutions while
reducing the time and cost to develop Dynamics 365 solutions and on-board with highest
quality.

The candidate will also interface with extended team members (Program managers and support
team members) to ensure the highest quality solutions are delivered to our customers. The
candidate will be responsible for designing, developing high quality code solutions with an

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emphasis on quality, simplicity and maintainability while ensuring sound instrumentation and
telemetry into the solutions and measure Availability and Operational Intelligence metrics.

The candidate will also be required to work with your peers on the Dynamics 365 team in
Redmond and collaborate across Dynamics 365 product teams and adopt in the Retail space.
Experience in Dynamics 365 portal development, administration and development and strong
technical skills in C#, Javascript / JQuery development is a requirement. The candidate is
expected to be an advocate of the customer by bringing in customer’s perspective when
designing, developing and testing solutions.

QUALIFICATIONS
Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration
for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender
identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin,
physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex
(including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable
laws, regulations and ordinances.

• BE/B.Tech in Computer Science or related field

• Strong technical expertise in C# and Javascript/JQuery development, HTML, CSS etc

• Extensive knowledge and experience in Dynamics 365

• Knowledge of Dynamics 365 portal development (ADX studio)

• Knowledge of Dynamics 365 portal development (ADX studio)

• Knowledge of Test Driven Development, Continuous Integration, Continuous

Deployment, Telemetry etc.

• Great design and problem solving skills, with a strong bias for quality and engineering
excellence

• Excellent verbal and written communications skills

• Excellent problem-solving and debugging skills with a solid understanding of testing

practices

• Proven sense of high accountability and self-drive to take on and see through big
challenges

• Knowledge about global delivery model

• Knowledge of SCRUM, LSB, SAFe or similar Agile development/implementation

methodologies

• Familiarity with automation tools - Visual Studio etc.

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 RECRUITMENT PROCESS

• ROUND 1 (Written Test)

• ROUND 2 (Group Activity/ Written Test)

• ROUND 3 (Tech Interview)

• ROUND 4 (Tech Interview)

• ROUND 5 (Tech-HR Interview)

The interview could span over 7-8 hours at a stretch.

EACH ROUND IS AN ELIMINATION ROUND.

Types of Questions asked in Each Round

Round 1:

There are 3 questions. In all of them students are asked to write the code.

Round 2 (Group Activity):

This second round is called “Group Activity”. The idea in this round is to solve problems in
consultation with the Microsoft recruiters. Think of some idea and discuss it with the person
allotted to the candidate and then code the algorithm. This is the rule of the game. So people
who preferred to solve the problems individually got thrown out in this round.

Round 3 (Tech Interview):

Questions are usually asked from Summer training and knowledge on subject related to VLSI.

Round 4 (Tech Interview):

In this round coding is the primary focus with exhaustive weightage to optimized code. a) code
to the detail, b) check the boundary condition c) explain each line to the recruiter, d) ask the
recruiter and e) definitely think aloud.

Round 5 (Tech-HR interview):

In this round of interview, questions related to personal philosophy is asked, to ascertain

behaviour and attitude of candidate.

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 SELECTION CRITERIA

S. No. Factors Weightage*

1. Knowledge 20 %

2. Coding Skills 40 %

3. Projects Undertaken 10 %

4. Internship 30 %

PAY STRUCTURE
Gross (Basic + allowances) = 10.37 lpa

Gross + PF = 11 lpa

Signing Bonus = 1.5 lakhs (1st year) and 1.5 lakhs (2nd year)

Performance bonus = 20% of (gross+PF)

Stocks = 15000$ USD (vested over 4 years)

The offer is stated as 18 lakhs CTC which includes the signing bonus of both the years. This is
done to inflate the CTC figure, just as all the other companies do.

LEVEL OF JOB SATISFACTION

Excerpts from Personal Interview of Employees taken by the team.

1) "Software Engineer - MSIDC"

 Former Employee - Software Engineer in Hyderabad
 Recommends
 Positive Outlook
 Approves of CEO
 I worked at Microsoft full-time (More than a year)
Pros

• Microsoft's brand value provides instant recognition and invites respect.

• Processes ensure great quality of end product.

• I worked with 3 managers all of whom were awesome

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Cons

• Some of the teams have long release cycles so work progresses a bit slowly.

• Not a downside for everyone but it would have been perfect if Microsoft had a
development centre in Delhi-NCR

Advice to Management

• I think the company is doing really great to adapt to new ways since Satya Nadela took
charge.

• One thing that can probably be worked on is to allow switching between teams without
full interviews.

2) "MSIDC good place to test your potential and MSIT to lose yours."
Current Employee - Software Development Engineer in Hyderabad

 Recommends
 Positive Outlook
 Approves of CEO
 I have been working at Microsoft (More than a year)
Pros

Flexible Hours, Compensation, Freedom to choose projects and of course Feeling of Valuable
Employee.

Cons

MSIT projects and managers are not up to the mark, and you does not feel like challenging
yourself.

Overall employees have good level as they grow on the hierarchy of knowledge and life as
well. Microsoft gives candidates opportunity to grow and master themselves over the years.

ATTRITION RATE
Employees stays for 1.81 years on an average at Microsoft.

Historically, the turnover rate has been low, mostly for the first two reasons that Drew Hoskins
outlined. However, this has changed a lot in the last two years, as the growth of the Amazon
headquarters and the local branches of other large companies has significantly outpaced the
growth of Microsoft’s workforce. Worse, most of these companies offer better compensation
with matched benefits. I am seeing a steadily increasing flow of highly talented developers.

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While Microsoft culture is slowly changing, the reality is that all of the top management is the
same or has grown up through the ranks in Ballmer times. Also, it is not really true that the
company is so different - the HR policies are the same and a single bad manager can impact
your long term career, regardless of the division. Stack ranking was removed, but most
managers still enforce the curve at their small teams. You can see other answer to understand
how enforcing Bell curve at such small teams leads to inevitable attrition.

TEAM PLAY OR INDIVIDUAL

Microsoft has always been at the forefront of innovation and has realized that team work only
could lead to innovation as brainstorming and gathering of thoughts bring about new ideas. The
downside of being an individual play leads to competition amongst themselves, but their focus
is to compete with companies outside to really fly. In light of this thought itself, Microsoft has
discarded its ranking policy, whose outcome focussed on individual play rather than team play.
Going forward a policy of Impraise was adopted which is described further in sections below.

TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT

Training:

A formal training for freshers is provided who is directly recruited from the college.

Training is provided for:

 On the Job Training

 Corporate Behaviour
 Ethics and Values Development
 Policies at Microsoft
 Basic tools: JAVA, C++, SQL Query.
 Focussed tools: (As per project work)
Off the Job Training

 Courses from edX which is relevant for work at Microsoft

Development:

Microsoft conducts sessions from time to time for its employees. Microsoft has partnered with
NASSCOM and other IT consultancy bodies to impart knowledge to its employees for constant
development.

OPEN DOOR POLICIES

Microsoft has always been a frontrunner in incorporating open policies through their work and
processes. One of the process that has been discussed here is to bridge interoperability with
Linux community. The article “Open Door Policy: Microsoft’s K.Y. Srinivasan on Working
with the Linux Community to Deliver Interoperability” talks about how Microsoft is adopting

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interoperability and thereby increasing openness. This is in the interview format where KY
Srinivasan was asked series of questions to understand how openness is playing its part.

Please find the interview below:

 Can you start with how Microsoft and the Linux community are working together on
kernel contributions?
 What are some of this year’s top interoperability gains for customers?
 What will you be focused on in the coming months and beyond with Linux?
 Has there been any critical feedback about this interoperability work with Linux?
 What changes have you seen with Microsoft’s approach to Linux and open source?
 What do you wish more people understood about Microsoft’s work with open source
communities and with Linux in particular?

PROCESS FOR EVALUATION OF

PERFORMANCE
Before Steve Ballmer stood down as CEO, he implemented company-wide changes. His main
objective: Break down the barriers to communication. Employees described divisions within
Microsoft as ‘fortresses’ where closed door meeting would frequently occur. Balmer sent a
company wide email, stating:

“One strategy, united together, with great communication, decisiveness and collaboration is the
only way to fly”

After the announcement, Brummel sent an email stating that Microsoft would be changing the
performance review program. In other words: Microsoft was ditching the ‘rank-and-yank’
system employees detested. Through these changes, the email explained, Microsoft would
strive for innovation through more connectedness and engagement across the company.
Fundamentally, the new approach would focus on teamwork, collaboration and employee
growth. The revamp would remove the much despised bell curve and rating system. Managers
would now have the flexibility to allocate rewards in the manner that would best reflect the
performance of their teams and individuals. In a Wall Street Journal article, Brummel stated
that:

“The review system was overhauled so that Microsoft could emphasize teamwork and
employee growth”. “The new feedback system was based on feedback from 10,000 works and
interviews with more than 50 executives”

Going forward, the system would focus on how employees collaborated with each other.
Performance reviews wouldn’t just be focused on how well the employee did, but how they
engaged with their peers around them. Employees now needed to show how they went about
leveraging input and ideas from their teammates, and how their contribution would impact the
success of others.

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Furthermore, Microsoft would implement a system that would focus on employee’s skills and
competencies. Through a process called “Connects”, employees would receive real time
feedback that would help them learn, grow and focus on their strengths and key learning areas.
Flexibility allowed managers to discuss performance and development plan whenever it suited
them. With ‘Connects’, Microsoft made the commitment to assist employees with their
professional careers. Today, employees are offered a full range of career resources to help them
achieve their personal goals. Now employees have the option to either go deep into their field
of expertise, or move across other business functions to experience other business
opportunities.

A greater focus on employee growth is important to a company's culture. Implementing a

system that assists all aspects of the performance management cycle is vital to understanding
the health of the organisation. Impraise helps companies move from the annual performance
review to continuous feedback. Managers can regularly check in with their team members, to
understand how they are advancing, and what might be hindering their progress. Creating
transparency nurtures a deeper sense of trust between employer and employee. Yet,
information on the company’s activities alone is not enough. As employees are essential to the
ongoing activities of the organisation, it's imperative they are allowed to have a say on the
direction the company is going in. What’s more, gathering feedback from employees regularly,
gives managers the ability to track progress per team and per employee. This rich data, allows
organisations to understand where their key strengths and growth areas lie, and how they could
go about improving business practices in real time.

Unfortunately, without realising it, Microsoft created an atmosphere that was described as
cultural cannibalism. The practice of stack ranking is flawed in essence. Without being able to
nurture employee growth and ultimately product innovation, Microsoft quickly fell behind
other competitors. Regardless of management practices, without having the backbone of the
company backing the product, eventually any company would stagnate. In Microsoft's case,
however, they were able to realise their flaws before they crashed and burned.

FEEDBACK PROCESS
Bi-monthly check-ins - more project details, progress, issues, feedback

Mid-year check-in - More like the annual review but no changes in pay/grade. You should get
an indication of how you are doing so far and if something needs to change.

Sometime in July/August - nominate peers to write feedback about you. Managers in a group
sit together for the 'calibration' meeting and decide who gets promoted, who gets what % bonus
and who gets to go to the bottom. It is mostly manager's word that matters. Peer feedback is
usually used as supporting evidence of performance or otherwise.

Annual review (September before your 9/15 paycheck) - Manager discusses with employee
and discuss numbers.

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 POSITION 2: PROGRAM MANAGER

INTRODUCTION
Four core competencies that are absolute must haves for any role, discipline and position
within Microsoft. These being:
 Confidence - includes knowing your stuff inside out
 Impact and Influence - If you can't have any impact and influence in the work, it
probably is a good sign that you are not a good fit for the job or your position should
not exist.
 Cross-group collaboration - Whether you like it or not sooner or later everybody here
has to do some of this and you better be good at it.
 Interpersonal awareness
 Being smart and getting things done

Classic definition of program manager says - Managing multiple ongoing inter-dependent

projects.

The 3 core competencies for a successful program manager-

 Technical - Includes anything from understanding architecture, writing sample code to

know what technologies to utilize etc.
 Project Managers - Be able to deliver a project on time and on budget.
 Strong in Design Sensibility - Be the voice and advocate of the customer at all times
and at the same time be able to work with all disciplines to make things happen.

Soft skills required would be-

 Communication - Both with your devs & testers as well as your manager, his manager
and so on.
 Negotiation - Across disciplines (dev, test etc) as well across teams other than your
own. It can also be with partners and vendors.
 Motivator – Having perceived authority.
 Visionary - Goes back being the voice and advocator of the customer
 Problem Solver/ Unblocker - This really could mean any type of problems.
 Networking - The bigger network one has, the more likely they are to unblock
issues and get things moving/done.
 Good listener - If one is not a good listener, she/he won't be good at the other skills
above.
 Leadership - Although one can develop this over time, it certainly needs to have a
good deal of it to begin with.
 Interpersonal Awareness (core competency for everyone) - Includes things like: how
does each team member like to be contacted/spoken to, how do they like to receive
feedback, how/when do they like help?
 Cross team collaboration (core competency for everyone)

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  Ability to anticipate future events - A good PM can anticipate changes, be it
organizational, financial, competition, and team dynamics and so on and prepare
accordingly. It's all about being in tune with things.

Tasks a PM has to do:

 Relationship building and management Escalation.
 Spec writing - Anything we build here includes a spec of some sort.
 Vendor Management - Work with vendors for specific tasks and hence, able to hire,
negotiate and simply put handle all aspects of the deal.
 Prioritization - Prioritizing the work together with the rest of the team.
 Delegate - This goes hand in hand with having a perceived authority.
 Technical Leadership - As a PM a lot of times you need to take a leadership role and
be able to come up with solution and suggestions for your team.
 Intellectual Property - As your team innovates, you need to be able to handle the IP
work that comes up so that the innovations are protected by law.
 Face of the team - This can in the context of working with other teams, media,
customers, conferences etc.
 Conflict Resolution - Sometimes though clashes escalate to conflict and as a PM one
needs to able to help resolve it. Once again, the much need perceived authority is a key
component for how successful one will be in this area.
 Budgeting

 Mentoring - depending on your seniority you can always make yourself available to
help others.

Microsoft has three main technical disciplines:

Program Manager (PM), Software Development Engineer (SDE), and Software Development
Engineer in Test (SDET) .

They all have similar levels, which are organized in bands:

- Level 59-60: PM. Most college hires start at level 59.

- Level 61-62: PM/SDE/SDET 2
- Level 63-64: Senior PM/SDE/SDET.
- Level 65-67: Principal PM/SDE/SDET.
- Level 68-69: Partner PM/SDE/SDET.
- Level 70: Vice President (managers) and Distinguished Engineer
- Level 80: Technical Fellow.

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 JOB DESCRIPTION & SPECIFICATION
RESPONSIBILITIES
In this role, one will be part of the Relevance PM team that is responsible for driving core
ranking and relevance features for Microsoft products that are powered by Machine Learning
and data sciences - e.g. Bing, Cortana etc. One will be responsible for defining the roadmap in
the areas, drive feature specs and deliver customer value. One will work across the
organization to fulfil product goals and requirements, drive deliverables, and coordinate the
overall project.
 Define and deliver on the feature roadmap and vision
 Analyze and understand user behavior and usage patterns to define customer problems
 Define feature specs to clearly map out what the customer promise is and how it will be
delivered
 Define success metrics for the deliverables that map to customer satisfaction
 Collaborate with the engineering team to make sure that the product features are delivered on
time with great quality, track the success metrics and iterate
 Monitor progress of the product throughout the product development lifecycle, identifying
risks and opportunities, keeping senior management informed

JOB SPECIFICATIONS:

 Strong analytical and data mining skills - highly skilled to munge data effectively to derive
insights that can drive feature direction
 Ability to effectively communicate and write functional specifications
 Excellent analytical, communication, presentation and negotiation skills with cross-functional
organizations, customers and upper level management
 Motivated to work with and leverage internationally distributed development teams
 Entrepreneurial mindset, possess a high energy level to react to situations quickly and
decisively, possessing self-confidence to be assertive when taking a position, not afraid to
make decisions.
 A Bachelor’s degree in computer science with more than two years of work experience
 Bonus: Previous work experience with machine learning or Graduate Degree (M.S. or Ph.D.) in
computer science with an academic background in machine learning

Important note on all Microsoft Job postings: -

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration
for employment without regard to age, ancestry, colour, family or medical care leave, gender
identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin,
physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex
(including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable
laws, regulations and ordinances.

12
 RECRUITMENT OF PROGRAM MANAGER
Recruitment includes analyzing the requirements of a job, attracting employees to that job,
screening and selecting applicants, hiring, and integrating the new employee into the
organization. Microsoft believes in recruiting extremely intelligent staff, favouring intelligence
over experience. It is an aggressive recruiter and is often the first company to offer jobs to elite
graduates at campuses and career fairs across the world. Microsoft has a number of specialized
HR and tech professionals who are solely dedicated to onboarding, the employee experience,
and the career lifecycle of their employees.

At Microsoft, Program Managers are freshly recruited engineering graduates or are Program
Managers who have grown up in the organization. They often have zero business training.

Microsoft uses the following methods to invite applications from prospective employees:

 On-campus placements
 Career fairs
 Employee referrals
 Applications through its website
Conducting interviews-The interviews are conducted by various methods. It may be:

 Telephonic
 Via Skype
 Face to face-It is done by a panel of interviewers or on a 1:1 basis.

The interview process usually takes place in 3 rounds. Throughout the rounds, the focus was
how would one deal with ambiguity, communication, and negotiations.

ROUND 1: Technical

ROUND 2: Algorithm

ROUND 3: HR Round

The entire interview process may range from 30 minutes to several hours in case of on-campus
recruitments.

Types of questions asked

Design Questions-These are asked in the technical round. Following is a list of some questions
that have been asked in the interview process-

 Design the most engaging user interface for a music app that you can think of
 Design a car music system for a high-end luxury car
 Design a website/app for a farmer’s market
 Design a coffee maker for a car
 Design a social network for kids

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  Design a coffee vending machine for the blind
 Design an engine to predict the outcome of a certain cricket match
 Design a website for Hackathon your school is organizing
 Design a cell phone contacts app
 Design an ATM for a child
 Design a device to amuse my pet
Besides design questions, the candidates are also asked behavioural questions and other
questions by which the HR assesses if they are fit for the job. For certain questions, white
boarding is required to explain the answer. Some of the questions asked are-

 What is the most challenging project you’ve worked on? What is the biggest takeaway
from it?
 Tell me something about yourself that I can’t find on your resume
 How would you motivate users to use your app every single day for a month?
 How would you track user engagement in an app and what business metrics would you
use to improve it?
 How do you add/remove node from linked list?
 Write a function that determines if a string or char array is a palindrome. What if I said
ignore case? What if I said ignore space?
 Explain and teach something I don’t know (White Boarding the whole concept)
 Explain your internship project and white board the end to end flow
 What is a minimum viable product
After going through a series of interviews, the HR then selects the candidate who meets the
desired requirements.

INDUCTION

Each week, Microsoft holds an NEO or New Employee Orientation for the new hires who are
starting that week. This orientation mostly revolves around rudimentary HR and compliance
topics. This is an opportunity for the newly hired employees to get to know a little bit about
Microsoft as an organization. At the NEO, employees are shown a pre-recorded presentation
from CEO, Satya Nadella. They go through a few admittedly silly ice-breakers, and get some
information about transportation and other logistics. Details about the stock options, health
insurance, vacation time, etc. Employees also receive a Windows Phone and laptop to use for
work.

Extended Onboarding for Recent Grads-For recent college graduates, Microsoft has a
specialized onboarding program called Microsoft’s Academy of College Hires or MACH. The
MACH program lasts for two years and begins with an intensive three weeks. Week one

14
consists of additional learning and familiarizing the new hire with their department and their
role. Week two is the MACH Conference, which is considered by many to be an exciting
experience. During week three, employees reunite with their fellow new-hires to attend
specialized training programs and practice the competencies they’ll be using on the job.

COMPENSATION-PERKS AND BENEFITS

The typical Microsoft Program Manager salary is ₹19,94,401. Program Manager salaries at
Microsoft can range from ₹10,00,000 - ₹35,00,000. This estimate is based upon 47 Microsoft
Program Manager salary report(s) provided by employees or estimated based upon statistical
methods. When factoring in bonuses and additional compensation, a Program Manager at
Microsoft can expect to make an average total pay of ₹21,81,575 . See all Program Manager
salaries to learn how this stacks up in the market.

Insurance, Health & Wellness-

 Health Care & Insurance

 Life Insurance
 Disability Insurance
 Dental Insurance
 Vision Insurance

Financial & Retirement-

 Pension Plan
 Stock Options or Equity
 Retirement Plan
 Performance Bonus
 Family & Parenting-
 Work from Home
 Maternity & Paternity Leave
 Childcare Reduced or Flexible Hours
 Unpaid Extended Leave

Vacation & Time Off-

 Vacation & Paid Time Off

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  Sick Leave
 Bereavement Leave

Other Perks & Benefits-

 Employee Discount
 Free Lunch or Snacks
 Employee Assistance Program
 Gym Membership
 Company Car

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE

PROGRAM MANAGER

Training

In Microsoft, Program Managers are trained by being motivated to go through the online
courses that are designed specifically for the training purposes. There are different levels of
degree in the online courses such as Bachelor, Master, Associate, etc. The courses are selected
on the basis of the position of the Program Manager.

Program Managers in Microsoft are also provided with the help of on-campus and off-campus
classroom training sessions. The specialists in different courses provide training to the Program
Managers and also educate them about the latest developments. Program Managers have to
compulsorily undergo training sessions so as to remain in touch of the latest methods in
Program Management.

Microsoft also include short-term training for Program Managers where individuals with
stronger skills within the organisation are paired with those whose skills are weak. This helps
in improve the skills of the weaker managers.

Development

Program Managers are the “Super Project Managers”, as they head them while they should also
have a whole lot of experience of being the Project Manager.

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Microsoft follows a five-step process for the development of best Program Management
process:

1) Development of the best Program Management roles and competencies

It involves developing the roles needed based on a number of factors like strategic
goals, skills and expertise needed on different projects, competition`s organisation
structure, etc.

2) Assessing the staff against the set competencies and roles

There are variety of methods to assess the skills of the workforce and the choice of the
method varies according to particular situations at that time within the organisation. To
assess the performance, the top management defines certain competencies and roles to
be performed by the Program Managers.

3) Develop strategic Training and mentoring programmes for the management

Based on the defined roles and competencies, the Program Managers are provided
training and mentoring to develop certain skills and knowledge for the job. Training is
provided in any of the methods mentioned above, depending on the nature of roles,
skills needed, etc.

4) Developing a knowledge portal

Knowledge portal acts as a one stop location for the Program Managers that provide all
the project related information. This helps the Program Managers in performing their
roles. Some of the resources and information that are a part of this portal are best
practices knowledge base, tracking of project status, Just-In-Time learning components,
etc.
5) Monitoring, assessing and improving the performance
Based on the set standards, the performance of the Program Managers is assessed and
the necessary steps are taken to improve the performance.
This process helps in the overall development of the career of the Program Managers,
by making them ready for higher roles and Microsoft as a whole.

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Process for Evaluation of Performance

Program managers have to drive sales while doing their normal work WHILE mentoring junior
employees, so as a result, promotion after level 61 at Microsoft is a big achievement. Microsoft
doesn’t want its middle level and higher level employees to rush into a new position when they
aren’t ready as there is a lot to be asked when they are promoted.

A greater focus on employee growth is important to a company's culture. Implementing a

system that assists all aspects of the performance management cycle is vital to understanding
the health of the organisation. Impraise helps companies move from the annual performance
review to continuous feedback. Managers can regularly check in with their team members, to
understand how they are advancing, and what might be hindering their progress. Creating
transparency nurtures a deeper sense of trust between employer and employee. Yet,
information on the company’s activities alone is not enough. As employees are essential to the
ongoing activities of the organisation, it's imperative they are allowed to have a say on the
direction the company is going in. What’s more, gathering feedback from employees regularly,
gives managers the ability to track progress per team and per employee. This rich data, allows
organisations to understand where their key strengths and growth areas lie, and how they could
go about improving business practices in real time.

Unfortunately, without realising it, Microsoft created an atmosphere that was described as
cultural cannibalism. The practice of stack ranking is flawed in essence. Without being able to
nurture employee growth and ultimately product innovation, Microsoft quickly fell behind
other competitors. Regardless of management practices, without having the backbone of the
company backing the product, eventually any company would stagnate. In Microsoft's case,
however, they were able to realise their flaws before they crashed and burned.

In addition to those things, there's also Core Priorities that you are scored on:

 Utilization - how much time you were actually working vs bench time
 Customer satisfaction survey scores about you
 Whether or not rework was required (Huge bad thing. Essentially means customer was
so POed that we paid to send someone to do what you supposedly had already done)
 How active you are in the communities
 "Operational Excellence" - which is just a combination of ensuring that you're doing
your monthly training on time, that you're doing your time sheet, expenses are being
filed in a timely manner, etc

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EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION AND LOYALTY
Microsoft attempted to cater to the needs of its employees from the beginning. Recognizing
that the majority of employees were just out of college, the Microsoft company operated like a
campus. The environment includes every employee having their own office they are free to
decorate as they please and there is provision of subsidized food and drink.

Earlier it was noted that few employees leave the organization by dismissal, with the majority
leaving voluntarily. Concern over high attrition rates in the 1990s led to surveys to find the
cause of the problem and for changes to be implemented. One of the major changes was the
requirement for top management to coach lower levels, assisting in their development by doing
so. This became known as ‘turning over the keys’. This is important because it allows people
an opportunity to develop further. Over the time, several changes have been designed to
increase employee satisfaction and commitment to the organization. As per the reviews of
employees shared on Glassdoor, they have described Microsoft as one of the best places to
work with. They feel that the company offers great scope for the development of an employee.

However, they listen certain issues which the company could work upon to improve employee
satisfaction:

 There is office politics and a tendency towards nepotism-favouritism

 The Program Managers hired straight out of college lacked direction
 They wanted the company to aid in improving their work-life balance
 There are frequent reorganizations in the company which creates an atmosphere of
uncertainty among the employees.

FEEDBACK PROCESS
 Bi-monthly check-ins - more project details, progress, issues, feedback.
 Mid-year check-in - More like the annual review but no changes in pay/grade. You
should get an indication of how you are doing so far and if something needs to change.
 Sometime in July/August - nominate peers to write feedback about you. Managers in a
group sit together for the 'calibration' meeting and decide who gets promoted, who gets
what % bonus and who gets to go to the bottom. It is mostly manager's word that
matters. Peer feedback is usually used as supporting evidence of performance or
otherwise.
 Annual review (September before your 9/15 paycheck) - Manager discusses with
employee and discuss numbers.

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 REFERENCES
For the purpose of making this project, the following sources were referred to:

1. https://www.glassdoor.co.in/Salary/Microsoft-Program-Manager-Salaries-

E1651_D_KO10,25.htm

2. https://www.managementconcepts.com/Curriculum/id/Program%20Management

3. https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/developing-project-management-best-practice-6735

4. http://mgmt.talkingvillage.com/article.x/1866

5. https://www.quora.com/What-is-program-management-at-Microsoft

6. https://www.glassdoor.co.in/Interview/Microsoft-Program-Manager-India-Interview-

Questions-EI_IE1651.0,9_KO10,25_IL.26,31_IN115.htm?countryRedirect=true

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