Becoming a Director of Program Management with .NET’s Scott Hunter | Careers Behind the Code

Today’s episode features Scott Hunter who is the PM director for the .NET team. We chat about the challenges that come with growing your scope, applying the lessons learned in startups and consulting to large corporations, and his early days working on BBS (bulletin board systems) for fun lead to meeting the people he’d need to know to grow his career. 00:39 - Meet Scott Hunter, Director of Program Management for .NET 01:46 – What does a director of program management do day to day? 05:26 – How did Scott managed his transition to director of all of .NET from his previous role? 08:41 – How did Scott get the role? Taking initiative to find the right place. 12:31 – Growing scope and managing perceived identities, from ASP.NET to just .NET 17:31 – Why team cultures differ and don’t align even when they ship in the same product 19:14 – How did Scott learn and build the skills to make these transitions? Practicing integration in early startup days, consulting. 22:47 – Most important lesson from previous managers: Don’t surround yourself with people like yourself and building a team with diverse opinions 25:13 – Deciding between going with a new project or continuing along on a journey not complete 28:00 – Accidentally attending Microsoft’s conference and joining Microsoft 31:55 – Moving from dev to PM and learning communication skills 33:45 – Becoming a manager and intentionally stopping himself from coding 37:20 – How did Scott into computers? Typing programs into the Commodore PET he stole from his dad. 38:35 – Scott’s history of working on Wildcat BBS to avoid forklift driving 41:52 – Turbo Pascal and hanging at Anders Hejlsberg’s house and serendipity 43:58 – Failing his first Microsoft interview, knowing what you want. 45:36 – Trust your internal sense of when to act fast #MicrosoftCareers #CareersBehindTheCode #Director #ProgramMangement