Mike Calligaro

About Mike Calligaro

I started my career as a hardware design engineer, and was actually hired by Microsoft during a small window of time in which we were planning to build a supercomputer to do video on demand. Then the internet/web took off and killed that project.So here I was, a hardware engineer at a software company. I loved the place, so I stayed, learned to code, and quickly moved on to writing hardware device drivers. From there I moved to OS kernels. Then kernel debuggers. Then engineering systems. I did a brief stint in augmented reality before a reorg put me on the browser team, where I now do top level UI work.There might be irony in the fact that the invention of the web browser effectively killed my first project at the company, and now I work on one. I look back at my journey and see a steady progression from designing the metal itself, to coding against the metal, to moving higher and higher on the stack until now I\'m almost as far away from the metal (client side) as I can get.I\'m enjoying myself, but I\'ve enjoyed every step.

Experience

1. Principal Software Engineering Manager

   Microsoft

   Jun 1999 — Present · Redmond, WA, US

   An Engineering Manager is both a developer and a manager. I lead a team of developers while doing development myself. The balance between \"manager\" and \"developer\" is largely dependent on how many people report to me. I started with two reports and have gone as high as fifteen. Five to six is common. At that count the management/code writing split is about 70/30. Responsibilities include:People management/growthProject managementInterviewing/hiring/team creationBug triageCode developmentBug fixingAs a Lead, I\'ve worked on:The Sega Dreamcast (sdk, platform and drivers)Various iterations of PocketPC/Smartphone/Windows Mobile (platform and drivers)Joint Development Partners (work with OEM partners to help them write their drivers)Windows Mobile Team Blog/MSDN Mag (wrote a series of lengthy articles)IDE and Debugger (developer tools)Engineering Systems (developer productivity, tools, and the build system)Windows AppsAugmented RealityTop of stack UI on the Edge browserThe UI that houses the AI BingChat/Copilot in Edge

Education

• University of Michigan

  BS

  1988 — 1992