A Day In The Life Of A Software Engineer At Microsoft - WFH (sometimes)

A day in the life of a software engineer at Microsoft. Well, at least this is what my day is like sometimes.
✔Subscribe: cutt.ly/kataiho
I am a Software Engineer at Microsoft with 1 year of experience. The majority of the time I am debugging things and writing code to complete tasks and fixing bugs. This part is actually very boring to film and show to an audience in a video but I tried my best to make it at least look sort of cool. The boring stuff to watch is actually a lot of fun to do if you like software engineering. The team I am on doesn't actually follow agile development so I don't have daily standups like other Software Engineers and I feel like I have a lot of freedom in my day to day life because of this. I also work on a windows computer which seems rarer and rarer these days with everyone and their new shiny MacBooks. I honestly have no strong preference between the two but I do have a MacBook for personal use and a windows desktop for gaming :)
I didn't use StackOverflow in this video which seems to be a meme on every day in the life of a Software Engineer video but in reality. a lot of the stuff I work with is built in-house so normal StackOverflow Questions and Answers don't actually help me that much. Internal documentation and bugging my colleagues is the way to go for most of us working in big tech. Sometimes you just have to dig through many lines of code to figure things out for yourself.
I made a lot of mistakes in this video. I am still new to making content for YoutTube but I hope you enjoy this video and over time HOPEFULLY my content will get better.
Also, sorry if the alarm triggers you at the beginning of the video. It triggers me into fight or flight which is probably the only reason I can even wake up at 9 AM since I am not a morning person :frowning:
📷 My camera gear:
Main camera - Canon M50: amzn.to/3mRZJxL
Secondary camera - Osmos Pocket 2: amzn.to/37GhNq7
Main microphone - Rode VideoMicro: amzn.to/2JiRL2S
💻 My desk setup:
Standing Desk - Autonomous Smart Desk 2
Chair - Autonomous Ergo Chair
Monitor - Alienware 34 inch Curved UltraWide: amzn.to/3hdVcED
Speaker: Bose SoundLink II: amzn.to/2WC7Gwe
Personal Keyboard: amzn.to/3aDlMW8
Personal Mouse: amzn.to/3mJ8UAg
Work Keyboard and Mouse: amzn.to/37FGbrP
Microphone: amzn.to/2JfEcRN
🎵 Music:
Pancake - LuKrembo
Jazz Type Beat Everyday - LuKrembo
Strapt - Pandaraps
Lulu~lala~ - • [브금대통령](즐거운/산책/Picnic)...

[@kataiho4405]

Thanks for watching! Subscribe for more content!

[@chunyinkittyho6371]

I learned something - your job is more collaborative than what I thought it would be. Nice camera angles!

[@LongTran-yf4hq]

Thank you for your video. This is the most realistic video I've seen on the platform Needless to say, it's very informative for someone who tries to get a job at Microsoft to know more about what is it like to work at the company during this time. Super exciting and inspiring for the thought about living in Seattle.

[@hassaananwar6212]

Thanks for mentioning about macbook vs windows :p, the reason I came across your video:) liked and subd !

[@NirmalSilwal]

it would be great to know your journey to Microsoft, your coding journey and interview experiences

Nice to watch this video thank you for sharing I will be the next member to support you to learn

[@lofijan1]

Loved the video !! 🥰

[@Terphlosion]

Growing up in the Seattle/bothell area that slight drizzle is super missed once you leave!

[@thebluechimera]

2:48 = being a SWE summed up in one sentence

[@kataiho4405]

Hahaha

[@lakshyadhariwal5482]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/r162cqywnpyGptE

[@abhishekm5906]

I'm urs 317 subscriber... Wish u all the best.....❤️❤️❤️

[@bdc225]

Aside from the laptop, did you get any other equipment from MS? ie. monitor, chair?

[@kataiho4405]

Yes

[@datadavd]

Hook em!!!

[@megadronGR]

really nice video dude

[@kataiho4405]

Thanks!

[@ramyaraj8576]

What do you think of the sun going down at 4:30-5PM in the PNW? Does it affect life or are you used to it?

[@isabell401]

Does it not go down at that time here in TX too ??

[@ramyaraj8576]

@@isabell401 actually ur right lol maybe slightly later but guess more or less the same time across the US. thought it would feel diff bc it's always drizzling in the PNW.

[@kataiho4405]

@@ramyaraj8576 @Isabel L The difference is that it's mostly grey throughout the day.

[@namz735]

Hi, what exactly are you working on in microsoft. And what languages do you use ?

[@kataiho4405]

Hi Naman, I mainly use C#. I currently work on a microservice related to FPGA compute for machine learning inferencing.

[@namz735]

@@kataiho4405 Thanks !

[@SBMNLLifestyle]

Hey, could you send me your Spotify playlist for coding. Thank you!

[@kataiho4405]

open.spotify.com/playlist/5rSPAILLdVnF3DgtUPDtm8?si=KjiIOa0nSuiYkAsVhxvLdg

[@marconipun8906]

what is the laptop that u are using as work and personal?

[@kataiho4405]

Lenovo ThinkPad and I have a desktop that I built almost half a decade ago lol

[@marconipun8906]

@@kataiho4405 oh okay thankyou very much

[@abdullahnauman5637]

Are Microsoft Software Engineers (allowed to use/given) Surface laptops?

[@kataiho4405]

Yes, definitely!

[@LucidProgramming]

I am so confused by this comment. Why would Microsoft software engineers not be allowed to use a Microsoft product for software development?

[@kataiho4405]

@LucidProgramming How come you stopped uploading videos? That's the real question :)

[@LucidProgramming]

@@kataiho4405 I would love to keep making videos, but these days I've been quite busy. Stay tuned though, as I'm hoping for a break in the storm coming soon where I can resume my upload schedule. Cheers! :)

[@abdullahnauman5637]

​@@LucidProgramming Haha I read an article somewhere that Microsoft engineers use Lenovo ThinkPads and was confused just as you are... glad to hear that I'll get to use a Surface if I get into Microsoft :-)

[@AmanJakkani]

Hey! What desk chair is that btw haha

[@kataiho4405]

Autonomous Ergo Chair 2 :)

[@marconipun8906]

which degree u took in order to be a software engineer?

[@kataiho4405]

Hi Marco, I studied Electrical and Computer Engineering.

[@marconipun8906]

@@kataiho4405 Okay thankyou

[@isabell401]

u put ur camera inside the freezer? ;o

[@ramyaraj8576]

had the same q. the dedication!! the number of shots where he walked by us!! makes the experience immersive!!

[@kataiho4405]

@@ramyaraj8576 haha. Just trying to experiment. I have no idea what I am doing still. As you can tell by the weird lighting throughout the video.

[@nodirkarimov428]

And how much money do you make from it a day?

[@kataiho4405]

Hi! You should checkout a site called levels.fyi. It has estimates and ranges for Software Engineer Jobs at a bunch of different companies.

[@travelear5450]

did you say FPGA ?

[@kataiho4405]

Yes

[@travelear5450]

@@kataiho4405 so you do verilog/vhdl ? I didn't know that MS uses FPGAs --'

[@kataiho4405]

No, I do not use verilog/vhdl. I don't work on FPGAs directly but on a microservice related to using FPGAs/Machine Learning. In this space, I don't think there will be a need for many people to know verilog/vhdl. There are many new translational/synthesis tools to map high level concepts/designs onto a FPGA. One example would be LeFlow github.com/danielholanda/LeFlow. I don't think this is actually used in the industry but it is a really cool open source project that came from a research paper.

[@travelear5450]

@@kataiho4405 Thanks for sharing your experience. However, I don't agree with you about your vision of the need of people knowng vhdl/verilog. And by saying that, I assume you came from a high level programming background (probably i'm wonrg XD ) . Tools like the one you mentioned were used in the industry for a while now (exp : VIVADO HLS) , but they are still too far from replacing the job of an RTL engineer. Will these tools be able to replace rtl engineers in the future ? I really doubt that cuz it's against the core philosophy of FPGAs, FPGAs should not be seen as a processor or as hardware software executing instructions, FPGA were found to provide a customizable hardware, so FPGAs should be seen as customizable electronic circuit that I can customize to design the hardware component I want. The second point, is VHDL/verilog are not used only in FPGA prototyping, but are needed for all kind of hardware design, all the processors that are manufactered today have been through a step of RTL design during their development (ASIC design).

[@kataiho4405]

@@travelear5450 Of course, I was only speaking in regards to the space that I am in which is a very small subset in the use of FPGAs.

[@adityajaiswal1476]

hey bro i wanna talk to u

[@kataiho4405]

Hello

[@adityajaiswal1476]

@@kataiho4405 sir what is your qualifications.as you get a job at Microsoft. i also want to become a software engineer at Microsoft . what degree is required

[@kataiho4405]

@@adityajaiswal1476 You should check out my 5 years of programming in 15 minutes video on my channel. I think it will answer all of your questions! kzbin.info/www/bejne/qmeyg3-ZZ56nrqs

[@adityajaiswal1476]

@@kataiho4405 ok sir

[@ayushpoddar3241]

Hii pls reply anything something plss

[@kataiho4405]

What's up?

[@johnnm3207]

Bro, blink more. looks like you're staring into the matrix

[@kataiho4405]

Talking to a camera really feels like that sometimes. More like the void.. but same thing. Thanks for the feedback.