A month after claiming that Microsoft demoted him for inventing PowerShell, Microsoft’s CTO for Modern Workforce Transformation Jeffrey Snover has decided to call it quits after spending nearly 23 years with the technology giant.
On Monday, Snover announced his departure from Microsoft on Twitter, thanking the company and fellow workers and also hinting that some of his years at the company weren’t precisely awesome in a good way. Here’s what he said:
After 22+ awesome years at Microsoft (18+ of which were awesome in a good way 😂 ), it is time for me to try something new.
I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to work with such incredible people and to work on things that matter.
My last day will be Friday, July 1st. pic.twitter.com/l2inatE2BMOpens a new window
— Jeffrey Snover (@jsnover) June 27, 2022Opens a new window
Snover began his stint with Microsoft in 1999 as the Partner Architect for Management Products and Technologies, a position he held for ten years. During this phase, he invented PowerShell, the well-known object-based distributed automation engine also used as a scripting language and command-line shell.
Though Microsoft fully embraced the technology, making it open-source and cross-platform on 18 August 2016, Snover said in May this year that the company wasn’t too excited at first about the project and, in fact, demoted him as a reward for the effort. In a conversation with investor Peter Thiel on Twitter, he said, “When I was doing the prototype for what became PowerShell, a friend cautioned me, saying that was the sort of thing that got people fired. I didn’t get fired. I got demoted.â€
While Snover held on to his designation, his level at Microsoft was downed from L69 to L68. “They tried to bust me to L67, but I was able to dodge that bullet,†he said. For those unaware, L69 (or level 69) is assigned to VPs or equivalent roles, while L68 means Partner. L65 to L67 generally denotes principal software development engineer or equivalent. Only those at L69 or above can make over a million dollars yearly, including base salary, stock grants, and bonuses.
Despite these hiccups, Snover was promoted to Distinguished Engineer in 2009 (L70!) and made the Lead Architect for Windows Server and Systems Center. Continuing in this role until 2015, he led the creation, evangelization and execution of the overall Windows Server and System Center technical strategy. He also served as the Technical adviser and approver of Microsoft’s Common Engineering Criteria program.
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In 2015, Snover became Technical Fellow at Microsoft and was tasked with leading the Enterprise Cloud Group and the Microsoft Azure Stack. In 2016, he became Chief Architect for the Azure Infrastructure and Management Team, and in March 2018, he became Chief Architect for Azure Storage and Cloud Edge. His team was responsible for Azure Stack, Operations Management Suite, System Center, Azure Portal, Azure HW, and PowerShell for Windows and Linux.
In 2019, Snover also took up the role of Architect for the Office 365 Intelligent Substrate Platform. However, a significant change in his traditional role occurred in 2020 when he became the CTO of Microsoft’s Modern Workplace Transformation program. The program aims to help customers utilize the suite of Microsoft 365 technologies and productivity tools to boost efficiency and productivity in a hybrid work environment.Â
Now that Snover has decided to call it quits, he admits it was not an easy decision to make. “I bet that was hard to leave after that long. I recently got ambushed by some strong emotions. It took me a while before I figured out that I was experiencing grief,†he said.Â
I tell people that if there is any amount of aggravation, frustration, humilation, or BS that you are unwilling to put with – you won’t be able to achieve big things.
At least that was my experience 🤣🤣🤣
— Jeffrey Snover (@jsnover) June 27, 2022Opens a new window
Microsoft has already filled-in some of the positions that Snover occupied in the past few years after switching from the Windows Server to the Azure program. Wilfried Schadenboeck is presently the Chief Architect for Azure Infra, and Eric Charran is the Chief Architect, overseeing on infusing Microsoft platforms and services to support customers’ digital transformation efforts.
While Snover has been talking about his stint at Microsoft and his experiences on social channels, he hasn’t yet announced his future plans or destination. Stay tuned for more updates on Jeffrey Snover and Microsoft.
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