John Jansen

About John Jansen

I have been at Microsoft since January, I began my career in Product Support for FrontPage 98, and FrontPage for the Macintosh, then moved over to the FrontPage Test team. I shipped FrontPage 2002 and 2003 as an STE and then was promoted to Lead Software Developer Engineer in Test to manage a team of SDETs. As a Lead I had between 4 and 7 direct reports and we shipped SharePoint Designer 2007, Expression Web, as well as the design surface for HTML editing in Visual Studio. After shipping SharePoint Designer 2010, I moved to the Internet Explorer team in April 2010. As part of the IE team, I led a team of 7 SDETs as we shipped IE9, IE10, and IE11, as well as Trident for WWA hosting in Windows 8. For Internet Explorer 11, my team focused on the F12 Developer Tools, which allowed me to work in a cross-divisional role. In addition, I have been participating in the CSS Working Group and the Browser Testing and Tools Working Group at the W3C, helping move standards forward via a strong testing effort. In addition, to working on the Web Platform for Microsoft Edge and IE 11, I also led the effort to build a WebDriver automation system for Microsoft Edge so that the webdev community could run their current test suites easily and effectively. My team leveraged that system to run our own accessibility tests. Before Microsoft switched to having a Chromium browser, my team was working on F12 Developer tools, WebDriver, and Telemetry and Data Analysis based on customer feedback. I was promoted to be a Manager of Quality and Data with a team of 24 for a short time before becoming an Engineering Manager for a team of developers working on Progressive Web Apps in partnership with Google. For the last 4 years I have been a Group Product Manager in the Windows Organization. I ran a team of 41 engineers in China, France, and the US as well as a team of 6 PMs as we built Generative AI into Microsoft Paint, Snipping Tool, and Notepad (as well as experiments with Calculator). Most recently, I have been overseeing the work to put AI into the Windows Shell. We just shipped support for LLM access in the Settings App as well as File Explorer. Before coming to Microsoft, I taught writing at North Seattle Community College and was the web designer and database administrator for a small team of Real Estate professionals at CB Richard Ellis. I am passionate about building the best software in the world so we can enable everyone on the planet to learn and to teach. I also wrote a book teaching how to build Web Applications on SharePoint using SharePoint Designer.

Experience

1. Principal Group Product Manager - Windows Ai

   Microsoft

   Oct 2023 — Present · Redmond, WA, US

   I am the GPM for Windows Inbox Apps and Essential Experiences. I manage a team of Product Managers and Engineering Managers as we build the essential apps that come with Windows, such as Notepad, Paint, Snipping Tool, Calculator, Sound Recorder, and others. In addition, I own the relationships with other teams across the company to help them ship their apps preinstalled.

Education

• San Diego State University-California State University

  Master's degree

  1995 — 1997

• University of Washington

  Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)

  1992 — 1994