Ten years at Microsoft, and I marked the milestone the same way I’ve spent much of the decade: onsite with a customer, helping people learn something new.
Ten years ago this week, I joined Microsoft.
I celebrated the anniversary in Cincinnati, Ohio, delivering Azure training for a customer. There was no office party or carefully planned victory lap—just a hotel, a classroom, and another opportunity to learn alongside the people I was there to teach.
Somehow, that felt exactly right.
Ten Years, Onsite
The setting was ordinary for the job and meaningful because of the date. After ten years, the work still brought me face-to-face with customers, new questions, and technology that refused to stand still.
From Finding Answers to Helping Others Learn
In My First Year at Microsoft, I wrote about discovering that expertise wasn’t about having every answer. It was about knowing how to find the right people and ask better questions.
Ten years later, I still believe that. The difference is that I now spend more of my time helping other people find their own answers.
What Changed Between Five and Ten
At five years, I was reflecting on Germany, family, perspective, and the questions that mattered more than technical expertise. The next five years brought another set of changes—to the company, to the technology, and to the way I understood my role in both.
A Few Milestones to Revisit
- The work: How customer-facing delivery and consulting evolved over the decade
- The technology: The shift toward cloud and what learning Azure demanded
- The people: Colleagues, customers, mentors, and students who shaped the second five years
- The perspective: What ten years made clearer about expertise, service, and growth
- The unexpected: The parts of the journey the version of you from 2010 never would have predicted
The View From Ten Years
The longer I do this work, the less a career feels like a collection of answers. It feels more like a long conversation—with customers, colleagues, technology, and earlier versions of myself.
That conversation was still going in a classroom in Cincinnati.
Looking Ahead
One year in, I was beginning to feel like I belonged.
Five years in, I was learning how experience changes the questions.
Ten years in, I am grateful that there are still new questions to ask—and new people to ask them with.
Earlier Anniversary Posts
- My First Year at Microsoft — Learning that nobody succeeds alone
- Five Years at Microsoft — Germany, family, perspective, and the questions that matter more
