This Week’s Microsoft #BeTheNext Episode is Live

The third episode of Be The Next Microsoft Employee went live today and I enjoyed this one even more than the first two.

First things first: Buck Woody (blog | @buckwoody) needed two hands to hold his coffee in this episode. Either he is getting weaker, or that coffee is getting stronger. My guess is a little bit of both.

This week the contestants were given an ETL (Extract, Transform, and Load) challenge. They were handed details of the challenge and then something remarkable happened on a show where everyone is competing for a job:

They collaborated.

Stacy was the first to get things started and soon all four contestants were seen helping to outline an answer to the scenario they were presented. After some time they were all escorted to meet with Buck, Tim, and guest judge Denny Lee (@dennylee). Buck explained the challenge in more detail, Denny handed the contestants a set of business requirements, and they were then given one hour to design an independent solution.

Wait, one hour to design an ETL process based upon business requirements? Last week they had 100 minutes and no one was able to solve the security issue. I’m guessing that shows how much harder it is to design good security for systems than it is to pump data back and forth through the network tubes.

During the hour the four contestants were all working next to each other on whiteboards. It looks like they were in the middle of a set of cubicles with everyone watching them work and be filmed. The judges also came by to ask questions. I liked that as I am usually interrupted by people all day long as I am trying to get my work done, too. But this was a little bit over the top, especially as part of a job interview. Can you imagine Buck stopping by for your interview? I can’t either.

A proper ETL process is not an easy thing to design and watching them work shows just how much is involved. After the hour was up each contestant was asked to explain their solution to the judges. My impression of the four explanations was that Chris had done the best job trying to communicate the overall design. I don’t believe anyone actually solved the challenge but the judges decided that Chris was the winner!

That gives us three different winners for the first three week. Will Alex finally break through next week?